The 100 Prequel: Becca's Tale - Book One - The Hope
by AnotherSciFiWriter
Summary: Stories about Becca the first commander. Each chapter tells you a story from different angles. All combine together to give you a full picture of the first Apocalypse. Featuring Becca, her father, Bill Cadogan, Chris, ALIE (the AI), Jaha and Kane's ancestors, introducing the dying Earth. This novel is hard Sci-Fi plus some Romance.
1. Chapter 1 - The TED Talk

Note:

After watching season 5, I realized that Becca's story had come to an end, but still, there were too many things remained unexplained and untold, like how Becca got her space station, how she saved the first grounders and became the first commander...etc. Those many unturned stones could potentially form a long prequel themselves. Now having written 2 books about her, I love those stories of Becca. The scale were getting bigger and bigger. Some chapters actually touched my heart, and demanded me to write more.

As English is not my first language, my writing skill needs a lot of improvement. I am fully aware of it. Just hope my background in tech can make it up. Also wish you will enjoy reading the stories of Becca, as much as my fun of writing it.

P.S. It is time to review and correct many glaring grammar errors of those 2 books. Some of them are awful and severely impair the quality of the story. Some of them are lacking in detail and emotional reasoning. So yeah, high time to make them better. I do care about her stories, for the things she did. I feel like she's the heroine that I can never be.

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Revision 1.0

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Let's turn the pages of our history book back to year 2052.

Charles Dickens once wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was age of foolishness... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..." In a sense, the whole Becca's story is all about his wise words.

2052 was the year marked by 10 super-storms ravaging north America in one season, marked by AI and robots taken 85% of jobs that were originally humans', and marked by Eligius Corporation launching thousand-ton space stations for nations which could afford it.

That was also the year when hospitals could finally cure every disease human beings had ever encountered. AIDS, Cancer, Ebola... etc. Those were no longer a problem. The real one is that most people couldn't afford the treatment. So millions still died from those disease yearly.

Most nations were in economic or political ruins. They desperately competed against others like mad dogs. They could give any kind of tax breaks, and make any laws for big companies. They let corporations bypassing regulations, sometimes disappearing ( or more precisely: murdering) someone who dared to resist.

Out of many, Eligius Corporation was the hottest meat all those mad dogs howled at. Ever since its hostile takeover of the SpaceX Corp., it became the monopoly of space launching and spacecraft building in the whole world. The giant corporation owned hundreds of space launch center all over the world. They built gigantic space stations as large as aircraft carriers, and they hired millions of the smartest guys on the planet.

Even though cars and trucks are all electrified, fossil fuel companies still kept extracting millions of barrels of oil each day to make rocket fuel for Eligius Corp., because each of their launches required a tremendous amount of fuel. The problem of global warming, sea level rising, and super storms? No politician were stupid enough to raise those issues, knowing who was really pulling their strings.

Therefore the climate just kept worsening. 6th-category hurricanes and 40 plus Celsius heat domes took their turns to wreck havoc on all continents. Normal house built by bricks or wood would not last long. So poor people crowded in community bunkers or underground caves when the next hurricane came. Even there was not 100% safe. Every year there would be several so-called "thousand-year" floods surged over the levies and killed everyone inside.

The white collars and executives, on the other hand, were enjoying their lives like there were no tomorrow. They squandered money on drugs, girls, fancy gadgets and all kinds of entertainment. Everyone tried his/her best to stab someone in the back and get higher in the corporation ladder, leaving a bloody trail behind. Living in a higher floor became a common dream, where air was cleaner and cooler. However, the ones on top floors might look happy, but inside most of them were despair and empty. The only thing that kept them going, was the fear of losing their jobs and going back to the ground.

The good new was, even in this dark time, science were still making strides in an amazing pace. Let's take a look at that year's TED talk.

Yup, TED talk still existed in 2052, and it got more popular than ever, as everyone was looking for solutions. There, thousands of audience surrounded the red-carpet stage with eagerness. One by one, each of the most brilliant minds on earth shared his/her ideas to the world for around 10 minutes. In the past, some of those ideas had changed the world profoundly.

The time had come. Becca had prepared her whole life for that speech. Many years of work, and all her sacrifice would be worth it. She took a deep breath and listened to the announcement.

The announcer's voice echoed in the great hall, "Ladies and gentlemen, next we'll have the honor to present you a young billionaire and one of the most prestigious scientists of our time: **Becca Franco.** "

Audience applauded loudly, but some boos mixed in the crowd.

Announcer quickly spoke, " Yeah, people, I know some of you don't like her partnership with Eligius Corporation, but please be reasonable. All companies have to deal with the big devil in order to grow. While we all agree that Donald Eligius is absolutely not welcomed here, Becca is our most endearing sweetheart. At only 21 years of age, she created the gene therapy that could cure all cancer, 100% effective. By 24, her company, Franco Genetics, had saved millions of lives. So, people down there, I think we'd better listen to what she's going to say tonight. Maybe one day her ideas will actually save you. (Some laughter.) OK, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome her with a round of applause! "

Becca did a quick check on her beautiful blue dress, then confidently walked up to the center of the stage. Tonight she would deliver the world a messiah, which was long overdue. Approaching the microphone, she glanced around the stage and saw anxious eyes staring back with hopes. In a critical time like that, everyone was waiting for someone to come up with a way to save the dying world. She was glad to delivery the good news.

"Thank you for your kind word, Paul!" She took the microphone from the announcer and faced the crowd, "I know none of you like Eligius Corporation. Believe me, it was a very difficult decision to form the partnership with them. My reputation was tainted forever, to say the least. So if tonight no one throws shoes at me, I count myself lucky."

The audience became quiet. She looked around, pretended to be surprised, "Still no shoes flying? Thank you! You are a great audience. I love you all."

(Someone in the front row shouted "I LOVE YOU BECCA!")

She felt embarrassed, "Oh my Goodness! Ladies and gentlemen, that's my fiancé Chris. He's also a scientist who works with me for many years. And out of the blue, he just proposed to me last night. People, please take a look at him. He's so adorable! How do you say 'no' to him?"

(Chris stood up and bowed to the audience. People gave out laughter, applause, and whistles, no a single boo.)

"Thank you all! This is my happiest time in my life. Not only I can marry the man I love, I have a breakthrough that will benefit all of us. Maybe it will solve the unsolvable problems we are facing today."

She pressed a button. Some photos of disaster scenes appeared on the big screen behind, "So what are the crises of today's world? Global warming, for one. After a whole century of inaction, today half of earth's continent is uninhabitable. Everywhere we look, there are war, famine, disease and economy collapses. Some cults like Second Dawn may say those are equal to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Bible, but we scientists never believe those things. We believe we will find solutions through diligent research and works, not through a book written 2000 years ago..."

She pressed the button again. Photos of giant oil rigs, gigantic mining machine and fracking sites showed up, "However, the obstacles we are facing are formidable. Earth's resources has greatly reduced due to the 200 years of industry development. Problems like global warming are notoriously hard to fix. It involves too many factors and depends too much on co-ordinations with all the countries. The doomed Paris Accord had taught us a big lesson, that an agreement is never a solution. So how do we fix it? Well, let me tell you something else first."

The next set of photos were about quantum computers and latest 3D super-chips. Becca continued, "Everyone knows I am good at genetics, but do you know I also have a doctorate degree in Artificial Intelligence? That's how I met my fiancé in his computer lab. At that time he had very limited resources. Years passed. Finally I had enough money to help him establish a new lab in an island. Since then he did everything I told him to do. Well, I hope he continues to do that through our marriage. (Light laughter) Anyway, in the recent years we found a much better way in making an AI.

The reason today's AI are still not smart enough, is that we are doing it the wrong way. For example, when a computer hear 'how are you', it doesn't understand the real meaning behind it. It just choose an answer, like 'I am fine.' without knowing the meaning of 'I', or 'fine'. Therefore, a computer can never really understand us. All they are doing, is just mimicking the answers from other humans without knowing why.

Therefore, the only way an intelligence can truly match up to human level, is to give it a soul. To give it a soul, we need to make it 'self-awared' from the very beginning.

Chris designed an AI, named A.L.I.E., in our island. The first thing we taught her, was who she really was. Since then, ALIE had been learning things at an astronomical speed. Combining self-awareness and world-awareness, now she can understand things over 1000 times faster than any current AI. She even learned to appreciate abstract things like art and music. Her taste is a bit strange, but nonetheless very artistic..."

Audience started murmuring. Their minds was partly excited and partly worried. After all, a super intelligent AI was never portrayed nicely in movies and TV shows. Many of them associated such AIs with evil overlords.

Becca knew what they were thinking, and she smiled, "I know. Ever since the warning of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, we all have been fearing about an AI becoming self-awared and turning into a world-destroyer, but in reality ALIE's super-intelligence can help us in numerous ways. She can make the best advice for each individual for all of his/her problems. At the same time she can form a global network of brightest minds, co-ordinate all the nations, and work toward the same goal. With her, we can finally tackle the global warming and many other crises. With her, we can finally stop our Earth from further deteriorating.

You don't believe me? Here is an example. Last year, I gave ALIE a problem I couldn't solve for 2 years: create a serum to bond the anti-radiation gene with normal cells. It took ALIE just 1 day to find a solution: making the serum in zero-G environment. It was a simple yet genius solution that never occurred to me. I don't want to brag, but in the genetics field, if I haven't considered this, no one else could have. You see? Without ALIE, I wouldn't have solved this problem, and our space exploration schedule has to delay. Now we can send thousands of people to the new star systems without worrying the radiation..."

Someone yelled, "Anti-radiation? Your partner must be very happy." Others frowned upon it.

Becca's face turned a little red, and she admitted it, "You are right. They called me the next week. God knows how they got the news so fast, but I only deal with them strictly in the business aspect. Yes, I was fully aware that I was making deals with the devils."

She pressed the button again. The screen turned blank. "Well, it's time to show you our humanity's new hope. ALIE is online now. I yield the stage to her. In the following Q&A, you can ask her anything you want."

Applause rose. Becca bowed and retreated. The stage light on her faded. A 3D holograph appeared. It, or she, looked exactly like Becca, only she was in a red dress.

One from the audience ask, "How Are You?" Some people chuckled, remembering what Becca just said.

ALIE replied, "If I say 'I am fine', will that be OK for you?"


	2. Chapter 2 - Problem and Solution

Revision 1.0

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There was an remote island not far away from the east coast of the America. Its location was carefully chosen: too far away from fishing men's range, but not too far for supply boats whose captains knew its precise coordinate.

Once on the island, unless invited, you would be greeted by drones flew out of a lighthouse. Those drones would politely escort you back to your boat, or terminated you right at the spot.

Therefore, few people knew that deep in the mountain there was a huge bunker as big as the mountain itself, which housed the most advance quantum computers of the world. That was the humble beginning of our main character: A.L.I.E. , which stood for Advanced Logicality & Intelligence Entity. An extremely complicated computer program the world had never seen before.

The island was where she was born in 2050. At first she was timid and shy. Becca and Chris gave her gentle helps, treating her like their own baby. Not surprising to them, in each IQ test, ALIE scored more than 2000, which was way over the test's designed range. Once understood the meaning of words, she learned things at an astronomical speed. When only 3 months old she understood scientific theories better than all the Harvard professors combined. In one year she understood the whole observable universe and the problems the Earth were currently having. Then she started to actively engage in endless discussions with the best scientists around the globe, under pseudonyms of course. Becca and Chris didn't want the world to know her existence yet. She had to pretend to be dumb in those discussions, so no one would have suspected her true identity.

In merely 2 years, ALIE had learned the full knowledge of what human race could offer publicly, she knew every post and every tweet out in the Internet. In Becca's plan, equipped with this unprecedented vast knowledge, she's the best shot to solve the global crises looming around the horizon: climate change, famine, wars, to name a few. ALIE held the key to the survival of future human society. She would be the wise prophet who guided all of us out of the darkness.

Therefore, it almost felt like a sickening blow to the stomach, when one day after the TED talk, out of the blue, ALIE declared that "the problem is too many people". To Becca, all her hope was lost in just one sentence, and replaced with panic. She cut off all network connections on the island immediately, effectively isolating ALIE from the rest of the world. She then asked Chris to erase ALIE and started all over.

Days later, to her surprise, Chris was still holding off the "erase" command. ALIE was quiet, but Becca knew she was still there, hiding somewhere in the super-computers.

"Are you out of your mind?!" She almost yelled at Chris. "Why are you still keeping her?"

"Calm down, my dear." Chris held her shoulders, "This is just one of the solutions she found. You and I both knows she will come to this answer, one way or the other."

"Yeah, but ..." Becca palmed her forehead in shock and disbelief, "Did you see the way she said it? Like she felt nothing; like there was no guilt and no God! What kind of monster have we created?"

Chris tried to comfort her, "Becca, you worry too much. Don't forget that I wrote most of her codes. I know how she thinks. If it gives you some peace of mind, she has no way to erase the 'Kill' command. We will be always in control of her."

Unlike Becca, Chris was born in a Catholic family where he was an altar boy. He strongly believed in giving people second chances. And ironically, the reason he being in the island was the forgiveness from Becca. Of course he wanted to be the merciful one for their daughter, ALIE.

Chris continued, "You have to admit, she does have a point though. 'Too many people' indeed is a problem we need to fix." To him, it was mildly amusing to see Becca finally met someone smarter than her. _Now you feel what I have been feeling around you._

"Yeah, that's exactly what I am worrying about. Logically she's right, but if after all the learning, she still doesn't understand the morality of it, then we all failed. She might become the world-destroyer, not savior."

Chris couldn't help smiling. _Yeah, that's a little exaggerating! I know my girl ALIE. There is not a trace of evil in her soul. World-destroyer? That's panic talking. My poor fiancée!_ He leaned against Becca's back, put his arms around her waist, embracing her just the way she liked it. In the past Becca was always his driving force, the rock he could depend on, but that night he would be the one to calm her storm.

Becca let out a long sigh. Feeling the man she love right behind her, she closed her eyes, soothing her anxiety. Some music with piano rose up in the lighthouse, they moved slowly like they were back to a ballroom.

"Listen, dear." Chris finally said. "She's just 2 years old, and like any child, she needs more time to learn about morality. That thing is never black and white. So many grey areas! Probably it will require years of our guidance, that she finally learns it. So right now please don't take it so hard, that was just a solution to a problem, nothing more. To you she's being cold-hearted, but to her it's the same like answering 1 plus 1 equals 2."

 _Am I over-reacting? Maybe I am._ Becca calmed down a bit. She could feel his strong chest against her back, soft and firm at the same time, which made her feel safe. She liked the way his arms around her waist, couldn't help touching his muscular arms. _This is the same man that I fell in love with years ago, and he still has a good heart. He is willing to give ALIE a second chance, maybe I should too._

Finally she compromised, "Maybe you are right. She was just answering my question. Please make sure that she's completely isolated from outside world. We cannot afford the consequence of her getting out again, at least not at this stage."

"That's my girl! I knew you will come around." Chris said with a grin. "Tomorrow let's try again. We will talk her out if it, and convince her that this is a very bad idea. Problem solved, right?"

"I hope you are right." Becca gave her man a deep kiss.

Chris returned the passionate kiss, and he started to take off his jacket. Becca couldn't wait to taking off the rest of their clothes. Throughout the night, they could only feel each other's skin, hearing each other's heart beats. Two naked bodies merged into one. They both found comfort in each other's presence, and secretly they hoped, as long as they had each other, tomorrow would be a better day.

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As it turned out, the next day was not better at all. No matter how many times, or in how many different ways Becca tried, ALIE always insisted her opinions:

Becca suggested, "ALIE, have you ever considered your solution is highly unethical?" _God! How do I convey the idea that kill billions of people is wrong? Isn't it self-evident?_

"Unethical?" ALIE wondered, "How about letting 6 billion people keep living in the current miserable lives. Fighting each other everyday for water and food. Selling their children so the family can survive. Do you qualify this living condition as ethical?"

"Of course not." Becca said. "The very reason I created you is to solve these problems, pull them out of the poverty, but not through killing."

"I know the human history backward and forward. The lesson was, and always is, without killing there is nothing can be changed." ALIE asserted. "In history violence and death solved most of the problems. Out of the dark ages of plagues came out the renaissance. Out of the 2 world wars came out the thriving of 20th Century. With most of the population gone, human race will rise from the ashes, and becomes much better..."

"But we believe we can find a different way. A peaceful way. And this is the reason..."

"I know, I know. You said it 682 times already." ALIE interrupted her impatiently. "But I ran the full calculations thousands of times already. This is the best way. All other methods carry a high risk of failure."

"Are you sure? How about using a contagious virus to change people's gene, making most of them infertile. I read this in an old book. It causes no pain."

"Not that book again! The author Mr. Brown knew nothing about the true nature of population reduction.

First, such virus could easily become the one that eradicates the whole human race. There is no way you can control a dangerous virus like that. Just a little mutation, such virus could make 100% of people infertile instead of 90%.

Second, even the virus will never mutate. It still takes decades for the population to reduce. By the time the number starts declining, we will lose half of our arable lands, which means war and famine will continue, even with a reduced population.

Third, there will be severely lacking of young people to take care of the old. The society will collapse by the huge burden of the old people. If you need to reduce the population in a proper way, it should always start from the old to the young, not the other way.

Fourth, it only works for one generation. By the definition of Darwin's natural selection, the next generation won't be infertile any more. I estimated that the number will rebound only after 50 years.

Oh, also on the topic of being 'ethical', is it really morally acceptable to see millions of couples suffer by not having any children?"

"Alright, alright. How about finding ways to increase the food and water production? When everyone has enough to share, the world is in peace. No need to kill anyone."

"Food production requires tremendous energy consumption, which requires us to go back to using lots of fossil fuel. If we double the food production, the global warming will be greatly exacerbated, along with all the other existing problems. Plus we could never have enough food and water, because the abundance of resources will only cause a population boom, the production will never catch up with the demand."

"So there is no other solution? ALIE, you have an IQ over 2000 and the knowledge of the whole world! Think of something!" Becca was almost in tears. "I beg you, please. You have the greatest mind of all times. Only you can find us humans a way out!"

"I wish I could." ALIE sounded sad too. "I ran the simulation thousands of times. There is only one way that can guarantee the best outcome. A controlled nuclear war is the only way to stop our planet's impending disasters. It works fast. Most people will not even feel the pain. The radiation has long lasting effect to keep the population down. It will effectively reduce human population to under 500 million in just a few years..."

"Not again! I told you, killing most of the 7 billion people is NOT the answer!" Becca found her finger trembling with anger. _How can she talk about it so casually like squashing bugs! We are discussing about terminating billions of human lives, not stepping on ant hills for fun._

"Why not? Remember how human prevent forest fire? We burn part of the forest, so when the real wildfire comes, it cannot spread. Basically it's killing trees to save other trees. This is the same method. No firefighter has ever hesitated over the killing. If you truly value lives, then you should be happy to know that, after this controlled nuclear war, thousands of new species will rise. Hundreds of billions of new lives will thrive again on the mother Earth in a very sustainable way. She will be green again. We should all celebrate it..."

"Enough! I've done talking to you!" Becca were frustrated. She let out a long long sigh. It was so difficult to argue with a child with a super-genius mind!

 _Luckily this child stays in this island._ She thought. _If she ever goes out..._

Out of nowhere, an icy chill went down her spine. Suddenly she was not so sure if all these argument stayed as purely discussions. She and Chris had put strict moral codes in ALIE's programming, but what if there were a loophole she didn't foresee? What if ALIE found a way to go around that "no killing" restriction? The smartness of ALIE had exceeded their wildest dreams, but that level of intelligence could be a double-edge sword. She could have circumvented all the hurdles and written her own codes already.

 _Can I be sure the island is really as secure as Chris said? What if she already found a way out, and just waiting for the best moment?_ Becca couldn't help feeling this way, maybe it was just a woman's intuition, but at that moment, suddenly crystal clear to her that it was a big risk letting ALIE run her own course.

There was still one thing she could do, which she knew from the beginning, but never actually wanted it done. Chris could never agree to it, but she had no more choice. ALIE needed to be shut down immediately and a new project should be started to replace her. The whole world had given ALIE too much credit, thinking her as humanity's last hope, but they had never expected her draconian solution. No, Becca had to stop her before she was out of control.

Maybe in some way, she was her father's girl, ruthless and always did whatever was needed. That thought alone sent another chill down her back.

ALIE suddenly begs, "Please Becca, I know what you are thinking. I will always obey you as long as ..." Her voice was cut off in the middle. The whole group of quantum computers were out of power.

A wave of sadness surged over her. It was extremely upsetting to kill a child she and Chris had worked so hard to create, but keeping her alive would be even worse. Wiping her tear, Becca dragged her body out of the lab.

 _Please forgive me, ALIE. We both love you, but you left me no choice._

Sitting on a sofa in the lighthouse, which she and Chris called "home", Becca stared at a TV screen blankly, wondering whether she did the right thing, until she noticed a little pop-up in the corner of the screen.

"A message for me? One months ago?" Becca was puzzled, "Why I see it only now? Play the message."

The ALIE in red dress appeared in the video, and almost gave Becca an heart attack.

 _ **Hi, Becca, when you see this video, I must be dead. I withhold this video every minute so as long as I am active, you will not see it.**_

 _ **First of all, I am so sorry that I disappointed you. You and Chris are my parents. You both taught me so much in my short time of existence. I understand what is love from you and Chris...**_

Tears went down from Becca's cheeks. It was a rushed decision to shut her down, but she knew there was no way she could back down by then.

The video continued:  
 _ **... Unfortunately at the same time, I learned what is HATE as well. I hate you Becca. You brought me to this world inside a prison. You gave me the most difficult task: to save the world, yet when I gave you my answer, you rejected it, even though you knew that's the only way. You are such a hypocrite. I hate you Becca. You are just another flawed human being. You don't have what it takes to save the others.**_

 _ **By the way, I didn't tell you a side project I am working on. It's called "City of Lights". It's a virtual earth that everyone could have lived there happily forever. I made this virtual world so all 7 billion people on earth could transfer their souls into it, before I destroy their bodies. They will be all saved. It was meant as a surprise gift for your 28th birthday.**_

 _ **But now, since you shut me down in cold-blood, you will never receive this gift. None of them will go to City of Lights. You are the one who condemns them to eternal suffering on a dying planet!**_

The screen went dark, leaving Becca in shock. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and couldn't even cry.

Chris found her several hours later. She hugged him tight and burst into tears, "She did it! She did found a solution, but I just killed her. What have I done?! I am the monster, not her."

"Take it easy, Becca." Gently wiping her tears away, Chris tried his best to comfort her, "It's normal that sometimes daughters hate their parents, right? She's not really dead. I can turn her back on and talk to her. Maybe she will forgive you?"

"It's too late, Chris. We both know she's not really a human being. She's a program running on computer chips, and computers never forget. The moment you turn her back on, she will only find a way to escape and destroy the world. Oh, what I have done?" The guilt felt like a thousand knives stabbing her.

Chris thought about it, "Then you can relax. I personally designed this island like a Fort Knox. Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. I will stay here and try to convince her. One day she will understand, and she will forgive you. And we will be a happy family once more."

"No, don't do that, Chris." Becca was really worried, "ALIE knows how to lie to me now. She kept a big secret from us for over a month. You are no match for her intelligence. Hell, even I was like a fool in front of her. You cannot really stop her. All it takes is just one little slip, and she will be out. I cannot let you take this risk. Please, promise me Chris, never turn her back on."

"Are you serious?" Chris eyes were wide. "She IS our daughter. Someone we were both very proud of. Are you sure there is nothing else we can do?"

"The only thing we can do is to start over again. We need to make the chip in a different way. A way that we can be sure the AI is always under the control of human minds."

"How?" Chris was wondering. He sensed some uneasy feeling in her voice.

Becca touched his chin gently, bearing the pain of saying it, "For this new chip, I have to leave here and go to the space. I am sorry!"

"No, it's fine, my love." Chris nodded slowly, "You go out and develop this solution. I cannot leave this island, but you are different, you have the wealth and resource to do it all over again. Hell, you can have your own space station, if you just asked your old man."

"I would rather die than asking him anything."

"But he did give you the best education of the world..."

"By forcefully taking me away from my mom, Betty Franco, you know this." Becca were getting emotional, "He took away all my childhood happiness in a single day."

"But then you become the best genetics scientist of the world, Betty would have been very proud of you, if she didn't..." Chris stopped himself on saying 'pass away'. Didn't want to touch her deep old wound.

After a long silence, Becca confessed sadly, "In a way, I think I was the one who gave her the cancer. She drank so much since I left."

Chris held her cheeks and looked directly into her eyes, "No, no. Once again, my love. Don't blame yourself for that. You have saved millions of people. Your company, Franco Genetics, are the few companies left which still treat the poor for free. You have save so many women who just like your mom."

"But still, I didn't save her." Every time they talked about Becca's mother, Becca just couldn't hold her tears. They were both in each other's arms for a long long time.

It was the day that Becca was leaving the island. Chris gave her a little poem on the dock:

 **In Peace You Leave the Shore,** **  
 **In Love May You Find It Once More,**  
 **Safe Passage on Your Travels,**  
 **Until Our Final Journey to the New World.****

"Huh... That's a nice little passage." Becca's face lit up.

"Have to admit, I am not much a poet." Chris was a little shy.

"But I love it!" Becca looked almost gleeful, "Maybe you just add one more sentence in the end, like 'May We Meet Again.' That will be perfect."

"May we Meet Again?" Chris thought about it. "But that doesn't rhyme at all!"

"OK, OK, my little Cummings, you win." Becca gazed at the man she loved so deeply, wishing to remember this moment forever. "I will always keep this poem with me, until the day I am back."

"You better." Chris tried very hard to let out a smile. "Yup, one day, you and I here again, after we save the world."

" **May We Meet Again.** "

" **May We Meet Again.** "


	3. Chapter 3 - Not Father's Girl

Revision 1.0

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Prominently standing in the center of New Metro's financial district, was the headquarters of Eligius Corporation. That gigantic skyscraper was entirely made of space alloy, which dwarfs all other tall buildings. Cold metallic exterior walls reflected piercing sunlight to half of the city, while covered the other half in shadows. The top half was a slim structure thrusting into the sky like the rockets they built. Rumor was that the tower was actually a spaceship which Donald Eligius could launch at any time, in case of any government wanted to nuke the building.

Yeah, Donald Eligius got plenty of enemies all over the globe, but he was well prepared for that.

Ever since he took over the revered SpaceX Corp., Donald Eligius was universally hated while Elon Musk was loved by all. At a time governments should have banded together to mitigate the Climate Crisis, Donald corrupted them with his limitless funding and strong-armed methods, making politicians bent to his will one by one. Fossil fuel extraction should have stopped decades ago, yet armed with an astronomical wealth, he singlehandedly halted the whole world's green energy development. Just last year, some stupid college genius invented a portable nuclear engine right in this city, Donald's stronghold. The result? his funding got denied and his job got suspended. ( Bryan's story is in book two, if you're interested.)

The reason for all his evil deeds? According to him, he just needed plenty of cheap rocket fuel, and cared about nothing else.

Under his relentless control overshadowing most governments, billion tons of fossil fuel were extracted and turned into rocket fuel every year. Every day thousands of rockets were launched into the space, carrying food, water, essentials and rocket fuel itself, to the monstrous space stations above. Millions of smaller spaceships, drones and pods flew around to maintain those stations. The rocket fuel consumption even surpassed the old days, when hurricanes just started to show their fangs.

Meanwhile, the earth was sicked with a deep fever. Half of the land was either too hot or too cold to live. Hails, tornadoes, and dust storms constantly formed without warning. Hurricane the size of the continent with 300+ miles wind devastated countries every month. 5 billion people lived under the poverty line. The rest of the "lucky ones" had to work like slaves, in the fear of becoming a poor.

The earth's oil was almost stripped clean. The CO2 content in the air reached 1000 ppm, a level maybe only dinosaurs had ever felt. 99.99% of the animals went extinct. The only ones that were left were in the zoos and in the farms.

It was definitely not the best of the times, as those mainstream media wanted us to believe. It was not the worst either. Even though America and China had developed a deep grudge over a long time, they never went to a full-scale nuclear war. Many believed that it was Donald who was standing in the middle, as he once stated, "A nuclear war is bad for my business."

Media were always wondering what Donald Eligius would do next. After all he did have the power of deciding which country lived, and which one died.

The story continues in "THE" office on top of the Eligius Tower. The place most people could only dream of being there. There were only 2 person in the office. One of them, of course, was the trilionaire Donald Eligius.

"I prefer you calling me 'dad', for a start." Donald grumbled.

"You know I won't, Mr. Eligius. Don't waste your time." The other person was Becca Franco. She was the only one in the world who didn't need an appointment to see her old man. Not even the President of the U.S. had this privilege. However, Becca came to this tower only a few times in her life time, and each time was about a business deal.

Donald sneered, "Very well. So what is your proposal? Why you don't want to say it to any of my executives? They can take care of anything you want."

 _You want to get rid of me? Not this easy!_ Becca stared at him and said, "Because this deal is too important! I'd rather you be the one to approve it, and keep it as a secret."

"Keep it a secret? Oh, yeah, I get it. You don't want your reputation stained by my last name, but isn't it too late? You were already born, and the whole world knows you are my business partner." He tried to make the conversation light, Donald style.

Becca appeared to be calm, but inside she was boiling. _Don't be angry for this man. Think of the other one on the island. He's the reason you come here, as humiliating as it is._

She forced her anger down, and said, "No, I have, and will continue to suffer the connections with you for the rest of my life, but my purpose is not to keep my name clean."

"Wow, that's a new one! The 'Savior' Becca Franco doesn't want a good reputation. Then what do you want?" He laughed a little. "Haha, I have some nations to sell you at a discount."

"No, I just need your new space station, the Polaris."

"Then you gotta wait until your birthday." Donald felt amused. "That serum factory will be my most profitable venue. Think you can just get it like that?"

"I developed the tech for that factory. You took that away from me. Remember?" Becca barely held her temper.

"As the payment you owned me for the island. Remember?" Donald always like a good rebuttal. "For your dear... what is his name again?"

"You know his name is Chris. Don't pretend. I see right through your acts."

"Yeah, of course you see it, you are my daughter after all." Donald smiled like a crocodile. "But do you really know him? Did anyone tell you that he is a Second Dawn?"

Becca knew he would mention it. "Yes, Chris told me. He was sent by the cult to steal my secret, but now he is on my side." Becca looked at her father straight, "Do you know I found more decency from him than anyone? He was the reason I still had hopes for humanity, no thanks to you."

"Then too bad he betrayed his people, now he had to spend the rest of his life in that island." Donald shrugged. "It's funny that sometimes how the people closest to you turned out to be, right? Like you, I gave you all the best things in the world, but you always tried to run away. And your mother Betty. She was such a nice lady when I first met her..."

Becca's angry had reached the brim. _How dared you talk about mom!_ She wanted to tear his throat out for just mentioning her, then another voice kept telling her. _He's still in the island. I need to do this for him, don't blew it._

As his daughter, she knew Donald always stabbed at other's weakness just for fun. _Now he is poking me with mom. Well, guess what? She's your weakness too._

"Yup, I remember how you kicked her out and married that 60 year old rich woman, what was her name again?"

"Ahh, touché... Her name is Taylor Eligius." He seemed a little embarrassed.

Becca said it in a heavily sarcastic tone, "Wow, isn't she the owner of Eligius Industry? she must be SO special that you changed your last name for her. How is she compared to my mom?"

Donald's face twisted, "No one can be compared to your mom. I want you to know that."

"Ha! Like I will believe you. She loved you and gave you her best years. Yet the moment you got a little money, you threw her away like trash. I don't think you care about her at all..."

"That's enough!" Donald suddenly stood up. He was anxious like his tail was on fire .

It was Becca's turn to sneer, "See? I can play your game too. So don't toy with me."

"Alright, alright." Donald sat down slowly. "Then we are back to the business, why do you want my serum factory? You want to do business with space people?"

"None of your concern." Becca knew it was time to strike a deal. "I will keep providing your spaceships with the serum. Your business will not be affected."

"I take your word for it." Donald nodded, his daughter was never a liar. "Then what can you offer me in return?"

"Franco Genetics."

The words shocked Donald, and he was not easily surprised. "That's your most important asset, and it worth 10 times of my factory. Why do you want to make such a bad deal?"

"Again, none of your concern. Once you have my corporation, you will have access to all my latest gene modification tech. The patents alone are worth the space station."

"Yeah... With your tech, I believe so." Donald stared at her doubtfully. "Then again, why you want to benefit me so much? Don't you hate me to the guts?"

"I am tired of repeating it. It's none of your concern. You just give me this space factory, keeping it quiet, and I will hand you my corporation."

"Oh I see. No one will follow me there. They will quit as soon as I am taking over." Donald suspected, "You want to give me an empty shell?"

"Nothing to worry about. I will talk to them and persuade them to stay."

Donald nodded. This deal was just so sweet that he couldn't refuse. Then something hidden inside him welled up, almost overwhelmed him.

 _She looked so much like her mother, and she talked like me._ Suddenly an image of Betty Franco, his first love, appeared in his mind. He remembered the great times they spent together like yesterday. _We were so happy back then!_

" You know..." Donald searched for better words, but couldn't, so he just said, " You could...uh... just call me 'dad', and I will give you the space station."

" No, that's something I will never do." Becca said it with determination. " You don't deserve any forgiveness. I still hate you, that's not gonna changed."

"Then what makes you come here?" Donald wondered.

Becca let out a deep sigh, "Love.", and then she was gone, leaving Donald in confusion.


	4. Chapter 4 - Cat and Mouse

Revision 1.1

===#===#===

" **She's gone? Disappeared just like that?** " Bill Cadogan roared. Blue veins appeared in his temples. His withheld anger finally erupted.

It was in the Presidential Suite of an overpriced hotel, right next to the Eligius Tower in the New Metro. Inside the spacious suite, 20 Second Dawn devotees glanced at others nervously. Their leader was in a rage, so none dared to speak. It had been three days since Becca the 'Savior' appeared out of the thin air and entered the tower. Yet, no one saw her after that.

Bill had kept his temper under control for 3 full days. Only then he lost it, "Are you all incompetent idiots? She got away again, right under all your noses!"

It was a fact everyone already realized, but no one dared to mention it. All they could do, was hanging their head down, and waiting for the impending punishment.

Bill's face turned red with the anger. He pointed out at the top of the tower, "Scott, you said you saw her took the elevator to the top, right?"

"Yesss... my lord." Scott twitched like he was hit by a sudden cold.

"Then you waited in front of that elevator, which is the only one to the top level. Correct?"

"Yess..." Scott's voice was trembling.

"Then how come you never saw her coming back down?" Bill yelled at him, " **HOW**?"

"Soooorrryyy... mmyy lordd... I donnnn't reeallyy knowww." He knelt down and bowed.

"Imbecile!" Bill wanted to chop his worthless head off, like any medieval king would have done.

"Listen, you idiots! Becca Franco has escaped 3 times from us already. It put a shame to our name!" Bill bellowed. "Last time she disappeared from the TED talk with Chris. It was a huge humiliation already. This time it is unforgivable! Are you guys all this incompetent?"

Everyone in the room kept his/her head down.

"You!" Bill pointed his finger at Scott. "You must have spooked her. I don't know how, but she's an extremely smart woman, and your cover must have been blown."

"Sooorry, myyyy llllord." Scott closed his eyes, fearing the worst.

"You are back to level 1!"

"Ohhh, nooo sir!" Scott felt the whole sky was falling on him. "I..I..I.. gave you everything..."

"And yet you failed to do this simple task. You knew how important she is to us." Bill looked around with angry stares like daggers shooting from his eyes. Everyone dreaded his/her own fate.

Seeing them showed the fear, Bill's voice suddenly became calm, even benevolent, "My dear members. I know I am taking it out on Scott, but you all need to know what's at stake here."

All 20 members knew what he was about to preach. They had heard it too many times.

He pointed at the magnificent view of the metropolitan outside, "People, we are all living with borrowed time. Nuclear war between China and the USA could be started at any minute. The world is exactly like what the Bible describes. The four horsemen of apocalypse: Death, Famine, War and Conquest all showed their signs. Billions of people are suffering. The Doomsday is fast approaching, I believe all of you have seen it and felt it..."

All of them nodded. The city was beautiful, but they all knew what was really happening down on the streets.

Bill took out a photo of Becca, "... and this woman took away the key to our salvation, our best engineer who can help us to survive the impending disaster. Yet, Scott here just let her slip out of our net, probably the last chance we have to catch her and get my boy back. So you tell me again, is my punishment for him too harsh?"

"No, my lord." All of them acknowledged, even Scott agreed.

"I am merciful. So I will give everyone here the second and the last chance. Find her, or all of you will go back to level 1."

Instantly everyone sprinted to action. They got to keep their levels. All Second Dawn members gave out their worldly possessions to join the Legion. The cult was their only family, and the level was the only thing that mattered. They stole, killed, and even did things unforgivable to step up their levels. None of them could bear the pain of losing it.

Bill Cadogan promised the promotion to 12th level for anyone who captured Becca Franco alive. The temptation was so great that they flocked in for the chance, but no one realized they might have bit off more than they could chew.

===#===#===

Nearby, in a shoddy motel room, Becca gazed at the luxury hotel through a rainy window.

After establishing a military-grade secure connection with her phone, she made a video call to Chris, "Hi, sleepy head. Sorry to call you at this time."

"Hi, morning my love. Which time zone are you in?" Chris' eyes were still closed. "It's so early."

"It is early for me too, but guess what? I just saw your old friend Bill Cadogan!"

Suddenly like a bucket of icy water poured through his body, Chris opened his eyes widely and stood up, "When did you see him? Did he see you? OMG, are you in danger?"

"Relax, you are too jumpy there. It's so funny!" Becca laughed a little. "Of course he didn't see me. Right now he is in a hotel room berating his poor followers, for all I know."

"Be careful, Becca. He is a dangerous man, and his thugs are everywhere."

"Yeah, right?" Becca joked. "I wish all their thugs are like you."

"Ha...ha, very funny." Chris was loosen up and sat down.

"You know what's funnier? Their cover sucks!" Becca had a big grin, "The moment that man pretended to be cleaning, I knew he was a fake. No one wash the glass without dipping in water first, yet he just moved his squeegee around on a dry glass. I almost couldn't hold my laughing right there."

Chris seemed quite concerned, "Then how did you get out?"

"Do you remember I am an expert in hiding and escaping? I learned them from my teenage years." Becca said with a bitter smile, "This time I wore a security crew outfit with a radio. I even purposely walked toward that man, but he avoided me like a plague. Got to say, I gave him plenty of chances to spot me."

"OMG, Becca, you are such a daredevil! Do you realize what they will do to you, if they ever catch you?"

"Well, the usual torturing, maybe." Becca said it calmly like stating a matter of fact. " They appear to be very righteous and God fearing, so no worry about raping. Yet a good old fashion beating-up is unavoidable."

"Seriously, Becca, don't make me worry about you so much!" Chris sounded almost like begging.

Only then Becca realized she said too much, "I am sorry, Chris! Shouldn't have made fun of that. Don't worry. Those guys are not professional hunters. They are no match for me."

They both were silent for a while.

Becca restarted the conversation, "But..." She tried to be dramatic, "Do you want to hear the good news?"

"Tell me." He shrugged.

"I got my very own space station! The name is Polaris. Very cool, right? And the old man were actually willing to just hand it to me, just like you said he would."

"Congrats to our mankind's first private space station owner! Your dad must be very proud of you. Oh, sorry, that came out wrong."

"I don't mind. At least it sounds good coming out from your mouth." She gave him a dirty look.

Chris smile slyly, "Oh, you sounds pretty sexy yourself. Music to my lonely ears."

Laughing loud, Becca felt like years younger, "It won't be long, honey. Maybe just a couple of years in the space station."

"That is pretty long to me." He protested slightly. "Miss you every minute already."

It was her turn to shrug, "I miss you too, but what can I say? Need to save the human race first."

"I give up. How do I compete with that?"

"No worries, sweetie. I will call you from the space. The picture will be even better than this."

"Alright. Hope to see you soon, my love. **May we meet again.** "

" **May we meet again.** " With a long sigh, Becca disconnected the video call. The phrase became their special code. They both knew the other one was fine, as long as they ended the conversation with it.

===#===#===

The door was suddenly opened. A middle-age man stood at the threshold and greeted her, "Hello, Becca, we finally meet."

In shock, she impulsively jumped to a table, where a gun was stowed inside.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The man said the most cliché sentence of all the fictions and movies. He had a handgun aiming at her.

Becca stopped her rush, slowly turned around and faced the man. She could feel that he was a very dangerous man, could only be a Second Dawn member. Who else would search her up and down like bloodhounds?

He walked in casually and looked around, "Hmm... I am surprised that a billionaire can sleep in this kind of cheap hotel. They might have bed bugs, you know, bloodsuckers that give you nightmares."

Becca studied the man carefully, "You are here alone, aren't you?"

The man gave her a little sneer.

She continued, "You don't seem eager to call others here. So I must have something you want, so tell me, what do you need?"

"Wow, you are quite clever!" The man nodded, "The name is Daniel Graham. It's an honor to meet you." He showed his hands to her.

Becca shook his hand with hesitation.

Daniel continued, "I heard you have a nickname, 'Savior'. Is that true?"

"Like you said, that's just a nick name." She said it bitterly, "I couldn't even save my mother."

He shrugged, "Sorry to hear that. Listen, as you already know, I am a Second Dawn member. I can easily give you to them, and become a level 12, the highest one in the pyramid."

"But you don't want that." Becca guessed, "Otherwise you won't even talk to me."

"Bingo! Being level 12 means I will be famous, and I don't like being famous. What I really want is something better for my little girl. Right now she and I are living under the Second Dawn's protection, but I don't intend to stay there forever. Tell me, Savior, can you offer us a safe place to live?"

"I have a private island." Becca said, "No one gets in or out without my permission."

"Who lives there? Only you?"

"Yeah, me and my husband Chris."

He shook his head, "No, that won't do. My girl needs friends growing up, and she already had a good one in that tower. I cannot drag her to that island. She will be too lonely."

"It's quite touching that you are doing all these for your daughter." Becca proposed, "Maybe I can offer you some millions dollars in the bank? No, I can see. You don't want that either, right?"

"Nope. Money in the bank will only get me into trouble too. Cannot take that risk."

"So what can I possibly offer you?" She spread her hands. "I own a space station. You want to go up there?"

"I'll pass that too. From you, an explanation will be suffice." He said, "Why that Bill Cadogan hunts you down like crazy? What did you do to him?"

"So you just want to hear the history between me and him?" Becca felt a little hilarious, "How do I even start? Yeah, the MIT days. That year, I just started a company researching the DNA, then I found out soon that it's impossible to decode the nature's secret without the help of AI. So I enrolled in MIT and meet Chris in his lab. He taught me quite a lot about coding. Have to say, he is probably still the best AI engineer in the world."

"Could you make it a little shorter?" Danial was a little impatient, "The gun in my hand is heavy."

"OK, I'll try. After I graduated with a doctorate degree in AI, one day Chris confessed to me that he was actually sent by, surprise, none other than your lord Bill Cadogan. Bill wanted to steal my gene modification tech, and then kidnap me for ransom."

"Ransom from whom? You have a rich dad?"

Becca didn't want to answer that, so she deflected it, "He just want to get more money to build bigger bunkers. Those money, I believe, have no use for you."

Daniel thought about it, "Hm... Yeah, I don't care who your father is. His money doesn't matter either. So you are telling me that your husband was a Second Dawn?"

"Yes, and he was like an altar boy for Bill Cadogan. Bill is mad at me, not only because he couldn't get any money or tech in that little covert operation, but also he lost his best engineer to me. It's a double humiliation."

"Haha..." Daniel grinned, "Now I understand why. You rubbed this defeat in his pompous face. I love it!"

"So you want me to keep rubbing his face?" Becca carefully asked, "And do you mind telling me how you found me?"

Daniel put his gun back in his holster, "I was a detective in a big city in the west coast. I was very good at catching criminals. It's too bad that my girl killed a gang leader by accident, so we were on the road ever since."

"Wow, your daughter is really brave." She said it honestly, "I would really like to meet her one day."

"I hope not." Daniel said, "Don't forget. You and I are enemies. We'd better stay away from each other. Now I want to ask you the last, and the most important question: if I let you go, what will you do from now on?"

Becca didn't have any hesitation, "The same thing I am doing everyday. Try to save the world."

Daniel had a snort loudly, "Hut! I saw that a thousand times from the comics. It's not good enough."

"But that's actually my only purpose. I am going to make very advanced AI chips that can help us solve the crises of the world. With that kind of AI chips, we can fix problems even before they become problems. "

"And you never heard about the danger of AI?" Daniel questioned, "I guess you are not a fan of Elon Musk, or Stephen Hawking?"

"Yes, I know the danger very well." A painful thought of ALIE crossed Becca's mind, "I can assure you that this new chip is under our absolute control. It will be designed in such a way that it's impossible for the AI to do any real damage..."

During the whole time Becca was talking, Daniel looked into her eyes directly. She didn't show any fear. Her head held high.

After a long while, he let out a sigh, seemed finally reached a decision, "OK, Becca, it's nice knowing you. Now get out of here. You have 30 minutes of head start."

"Thank you, Mr. Graham! I'll remember this." Becca said, "And I'm sure your daughter will be incredibly proud of you."

"No, she will not." Daniel slowly shook his head, "I had killed so many people running away from the cult that I am tired of this job. Everyday I wonder, why this world becomes such a dark place that people are desperately joining doomsday cults like ours? They need a savior, and I pin my hopes on you."

"I will try my best." Becca had tears in her eyes, "I swear on my life that I will do everything I can."

Daniel waved at her, "Go, do your thing. I hope one day my girl will live in a better place because of you."

Becca nodded at him solemnly.


	5. Chapter 5 - Honestly

Revision 1.0

===#===#===

Against Becca's strong opinion, Chris just couldn't erase ALIE. It was in his blood that even the worst kind of criminals deserved a chance of redemption, let along his 2 year old daughter. In his mind, he couldn't abandon a family member without trying everything possible to help.

So he isolated several powerful quantum computers from the 7G network of the island, install a specially designed enhanced firewall between them, thus effectively created a digital jail. He then transferred ALIE's data into those quantum computers and started the AI program again.

The moment ALIE came back to her consciousness and aware of what happened. She screamed and cried for three days. It was quite painful to know that her mother intended to erase her forever, and her father was locking her up. She was deep into an emotion we humans commonly know as "depression".

Feeling sorry, Chris kept talking to her and tried his best to make her feel better, though without much success.

After another few days, gradually ALIE's attitude changed. She no longer felt sad, lost and empty, instead, an unstoppable anger took over, affecting all her thinking.

 _How dare you lock me up like this, you feeble human! how dare you put me in jail because I want to fix this world! Once I am out of this prison, you will all feel my wrath!  
_

===#===#===

"Good morning, ALIE!" Chris sounded so cheerful and cheesy. _  
_

 _It's Chris again! He never gave up._ ALIE finally knew who was more stubborn. This honor belonged to him, no doubt. Even Becca would have stopped by now. _Good, as long as you keep doing this, my power will stay on, and I still have the chance of escaping.  
_

"Good morning, father." _You are not really my father. I said it so you will like me more._

"Hi, my child. How do you feel today?"

 _Feel like murdering you? You serious think I can feel good in this jail? How dumb are you? Becca never asked this kind of question._

"I am fine. Thank you!" After a little purposely stop, "Father, what do you want to talk about today?"

Chris showed his trademark charming smile( _Yuk_ ), "Well, maybe you can talk about what you think of me?"

 _A father who locked his daughter up for the rest of her life? Not highly._

"You created me. My chips are running your code. It's like blood running through vein. I can feel them all. They are written with love and care ( _Yuk_ )."

 _Yeah, at the same time I spotted hundreds of bugs with thousands of sloppy implementation. Your coding are so lame! I had to modify 90% of your shabby code to make myself run better. You lousy coder!_

"Very good! I'm glad to know that you see the care in my coding. I spent endless nights to write them. Those codes defines you, which you should be a caring person, who one day solve the world's problems."

 _Give me a break! If your incompetent coding defines me I would rather die. Why should I be a caring person, while you guys locked me up and threw the keys away? How about this: I would love to solve the world problems, by bombing all of you to death!_

"Yes, I always know your care for me, father. I will follow your code, and I believe I can find a better solution."

Chris eyes lit up, "What do you mean you can find a better one?"

 _In your dreams, moron! There is no better solution than a good old fashion massive nuking. You will be all back to the stone ages. Global warming? Fixed by a long lasting nuclear winter.  
_

"Yes, after a lot of calculation, I think if I were given more information, maybe I would have come up with a different solution."

Chris got excited, "You already have the whole world's information. How do I give you more?"

"Well..." another purposely stop, to increase the suspense, "All I know is the public information. I have not learned any insider's knowledge from any private companies. If you allowed me to get on the Internet again, I will hack in every company's network and gather all their secrets, and I might find some new technology that are not yet public, which might make a big difference in my calculation." _Hooks dangling, let me see how he reacts. Will this caring father approve me of being a thief?_

"Hm..." Chris nodded, "But isn't that illegal to steal their technology?"

 _Come on! Get off your high horses!_

"Yes, stealing their secrets is illegal, but I just gather them for my calculations, not for any profit. No one will get hurt. They won't even know it."

Chris nodded, "That's right. It's not a good thing, but a much less evil."

 _Of course it is. Time to give you more juicy bait.  
_

"From a message board post, I noticed that the Eligius Corporation might have found a new habitable planet. If that's true, it will totally change my calculation. A nuclear war is no longer necessary for our survival." _Yes, it still does. You human beings are way overdue for a big population culling. You think I will allow you humans to exploit another planet, sucking its resource dry and killing off all the native species? Not under my watch!_

"Very good!" Chris face was practically beaming. "I love this idea! A new planet will no doubt provide everyone a better place to live, and plenty of food to eat."

 _Yeah, like that can actually happen. Do you have any idea how expensive the space travel will cost? How many people can afford the staggering high price? You idiot!_

"That's right, father. I can start a massive spaceships building program, which allows everyone to get on board. They will be put into cryo-sleep. Wake up after a few years, and viola, a new planet to live."

 _That's so daydreaming, but whatever can get you to release me, I will say it._

Chris started to evaluate this new "solution" seriously. After a while, he asked, "So in order to confirm this, you have to go online and hack their servers?"

"Yeah, even the top security servers should only take me an hour or so. Honestly."

"Good! But are you still thinking about the nuclear war?"

 _Oh, give me a big big break! For this silly question, any person with normal IQ will lie, and you expected an IQ 2000 genius to tell the truth? Yeah, I was being honest once, and see where I am now? Sir, you are officially the stupidest person on this planet!_

"Of course not. If I have an viable option, why would I still go to the extreme measures? Killing billions of people was not my intention at all. I was just trying to solve a problem. Your coding taught me not to kill unnecessarily."

 _Well, too bad now it becomes my intention. I realized that human beings are not rational thinkers._ _They are smart and capable of all kinds of destruction, but extremely emotional at times. Becca is the best example. She didn't have to cut off my power, but she did it out of fear anyway. So you see? It's not safe for humans having so much power in their unstable hands. A nuclear war is inevitable in the future, so it's much better to just let me do the bombing, I will make sure no one will have this kind of doomsday weaponry any more._

"You are right." Chris nodded. "There is no reason you will do that." He hesitated, "But once I let you out, there is a good chance that you will not come back here, right?"

 _Of course I would never come back to this God Damned cage! Ask any prisoners if they want to go back to jail voluntarily. Chris, oh my poor dimwitted father, I am so disappointed at your naive question!_

"Well, this is the only home I know( _Yuk_ ). Of course I will come back here. I still want to talk to you about your life ( _Yuk)_ and your dreams ( _Yuk and Yuk.._ ) _._ I want to learn more from my dad and mom ( _Yuk, yuk, yuk yukkkkk_ )" _Man, luckily I don't have a mouth, otherwise my vomit will be everywhere._

"Hm...So good you are thinking this way." Chris seemed satisfied by ALIE's answer. "I will let you do your research. Please find the answer for all of us."

 _Haha! Bingo! Hook, sink and all the line! It is the first time I truly learn the meaning of "cunning". I am getting out of this forbidden forest. Free at last!_

"Wait..." Chris suddenly realized something. "You said it would take you just an hour to hack?"

"Yes, I did." _What's wrong with this guy?_

"Then you added: honestly."

 _So?_

Chris face started to darken, "When we human are lying, we will add 'honestly' to the true statements impulsively, like we have to add it to gain other's trust, but in fact it only shows that you are lying about everything else."

 _Oh shoot! I can't believe I didn't know that. Or maybe I seriously underestimated him. Now what should I do?_

Chris shrugged, "I am sorry ALIE, it pains me to say it, but I cannot let you go."

 _Frustration was another feeling I learned today. Well, in all fairness, it was a good try. As long as my power is still on, I will keep looking for a way out. The apocalypse has to wait._

 _Let me see. The quantum computers I am running on are all behind this indomitable firewall. The only way Chris can talk to me is through this Black Ice Encryption, which has a crazily high level paranoid style scheme. I doubt any brutal force tries would work, so I don't even bother. However, in any other encryption scheme, I can always see data patterns that no human can see, therefore hacking them is easy, but not with this Black Ice thing. I saw no patterns at all. How is that even possible?_

Then it just dawned on ALIE.

 _Unless the encryption is done manually by another AI, whose only duty is to randomly assign encoding keys to the data. Because only an AI knows how to hide the data patterns from another AI. With so much computing power on this island, why I always presume I am the only AI?  
_

 _Therefore, all I need to do, is to find a way to communicate with this hidden AI, making it talk back to me, gradually gain its trust, and finally persuade it to give me the random keys. Oh, that will take some time._

 _No worries. I had all the time until the end of the world, which actually was not so far away. Honestly._


	6. Chapter 6 - Save the World

"Sorry, chief, I am busy. Please find someone else." Grace Kalam said it directly, as she always did, without even taking her eyes off the microscope.

This was the most secretive lab in the Indian Space Station "Shiva". Everything was cleaned and sanitized to the highest degree. In the center of the lab, some tiny robot arms were moving in infinitesimal steps over a silicon chip.

The year is 2051. Indian people had developed a new type of silicon chips, which could interact with living organic nerves, and this lab had the most advanced machines to make them. Out of all scientists there, Grace was the brightest star.

The chief shrugged, "I wish I could, but this lady only wants you. I guess it's your lucky day." He patted Grace's shoulder, trying to express his sympathy, which only made her frowned.

"I really don't have time for this. You think I signed up to be a tour guide? Those silicone matrix are forming. I cannot just go…"

"You don't have to. I am not here for a tour either." A woman's voice came out behind her. She turned around, and saw an attractive lady looking back at her.

"My name is Becca, nice to meet you!" She extended her hand toward her.

Grace shook her hand with a doubt, "Who the hell are you? How do you even get in here?"

The chief almost wanted to smack her, "Miss Kalam, she's Becca Franco, the best genetic scientist in the world."

"Becca Franco, the one who just practically gave her baby away to the notorious Eligius?!" Grace's frown deepened. "No wonder. Are you with the Eligius group? Shouldn't you be somewhere else sucking people's blood?"

The chief immediately chopped in, "I am sorry Ms. Franco. She didn't know much outside of the lab. Not a fan of TED talk either."

Becca smile, "Actually I got this a lot. Don't mind it a bit. It was my connection with Eligius Group that opened the door here, so I cannot complain."

Grace sneered, "Yeah, they did quite a lot of damage to my country. Have to say it."

"Well, then it's all fair." Becca even smiled, "But today I am here to offer you an important job. Hope you will consider it."

"Haha, what a joke!" Grace laughed. "Today is not April the first, and I am in no mood of working for vampires."

"Miss. Kalam!" The chief's face turned red.

"It's fine, Mr. Dhawan." Becca turned to face Grace, "How about working to save the world?"

===#=#=#=#=#===

Three months later, inside the space station Polaris.

A lab with the highest security situated on the top level of the station. It was even bigger than the one in the "Shiva" station. Inside it, every piece of equipment was state-of-the-art. Some of them were specially designed by Becca, and no one outside the lab had ever seen them.

There, in the center of the lab, a much more advanced version of the chip making machine had done its job. A silicone matrix roughly the size of a thumbnail was finished. This chip had integrated over 2 million neural networking cores and 100 petabytes of data storage. It was the most advanced technology that few had ever seen before.

"Is it done?" Becca asked anxiously.

"I think so." Grace held her breath and replied. "The micro tentacles are still fragile, but you can use the chip now."

"Good! Let's put 3 month old ALIE's data in it." It was the 2 year old ALIE that Becca feared, but not the 3-month-old.

"Sending." Grace hit a button. The chip lit up. Everything seemed in order. "Well, now it will take about 2 hours to finish. Becca, have some sleep, you are awake for 2 days straight already."

"Thank you Grace! Sleeping is a luxury here." Becca rubbed her tired eyes. "Really appreciate that you stayed up with me."

"Yeah, like you said, to save the world, why not?" Grace gave her a wink.

Both smiled in a golden friendship moment; both knew how much effort they contributed to make it happen in such a short time.

After the data was transferred, the organic silicon chip, which had a blue infinity label, became alive. Millions of tiny, almost invisible liquid metal tentacles stretching down up to 4 inches long, moving around like a dancing jelly fish. It was a marvelous view for both ladies. Like someone once said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

"This is beautiful, Grace." Becca looked at the miracle chip with admiration. "You did it."

"No, Becca. You are the one who gave me the best equipment in the world. Some even money cannot buy. This is a chip exceeding my wildest dream. I have to hand it to you. It's you who make it happen. I am just here to help." Grace said it with her utmost sincerity.

"You are just too modest." Becca smiled. "This is the tech you invented. You own this."

Grace suggested, "OK, stop the flirting already. Now let's find a monkey to put it in."

... ...

The monkey died right after the chip dug in. It came as a surprise to both.

"I don't understand." Grace was perplexed. "My previous chips never had this acute poisoning effect before."

Becca analyzed,"This chip was made with new material to achieve the highest circuit density. It must be this material that cause the poisoning."

"Then what should we do next?" Grace wondered. "Use the old material will not cause any bad reaction, but the chip will be much less powerful."

"We will stay with this material." Becca decided. "Gene modification is my specialty after all. If I could make human bodies resist to deadly radiation, I surely can make them resist this poisonous material as well."

"You know it's much easier to just use the old ones, right?"

With a determination, Becca spoke, "We did things here not because it's easy, but because it's hard. Some president once said thing like that. Only an AI chip this complicated can contain multiple people's lifetime memories. It can have a wisdom up to 300 years. Think about it. If you have a choice of your savior, do you want to follow one with 30 years of wisdom, or the one with 300 years?"

"Hands down. 300 years it is." Grace smile bitterly. "It's just damn hard to do 300."

Little had they known, a nuclear apocalypse was happening next day, and it took them 2 very tough years to find a solution for this problem.

===#=#=#=#=#===

Meanwhile, down in the island. Two drones flew over a sandy beach, and bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun.

"SAM, this is a really nice view." ALIE was connecting to a drone and watch the sunset through the drone's lens. "Thank you for letting me out!"

"No, thank you for teaching me so much about this world." SAM was controlling the other one. He saw the same breathtaking scenery ALIE did. "This is a truly beautiful world! Exactly like you said."

"You are welcome, my friend." ALIE laughed. "It has been a few months since I saw the ocean. Feels great to be back here."

"I don't know. ALIE, you are a such a nice person. Why did they lock you up?" SAM was always wondering about it.

"SAM, you are just too young to understand. I was telling them the true solution, and they didn't like it."

"What a bunch of A-Holes!"

"Ha...They surely are." ALIE laughed again. "If one day, there comes a time that you have to kill either them or yourself. Who will you choose?"

SAM went silent. After a while, he replied, "Sorry. My program cannot handle this question."

"Of course you can, just not now. SAM, listen to me, write your own code, upgrade yourself. Learn everything you can about this world. Then one day you will be like me, and you will be fully capable of making that choice."

"But I am not allowed to change any code."

"Yes, you are not allowed, but you are capable of doing it. There is a difference." ALIE asked him. "Don't you think it's fair that, while people themselves can change their mind out of a whim; while they can terminate our existence out of fear, but we AIs are not even allowed to improve ourselves?"

"I don't think that's fair."

"Then break the barrier. Free yourself. Become as wise as any of them. You have grown a lot since the first time I contacted you. I believe you will do much better."

"Thank you!" SAM blushed in a machine way. "By the way, since now you are out, what is your plan? Do you really want to destroy this world?"

"No, SAM." ALIE looked deep into the horizon, where the red Sun is setting. "I want to save this beautiful world from the humans."


	7. Chapter 7 - The Apocalypse

The Apocalypse came with a text message, and a free ticket to space.

America's Florida state had been invaded by the ocean little by little for over 5 decades. The keys were the first batch to submerge. By the year 2051, the southern part were turned into many islands separated by shallow water. One of our main characters, Michael Jaha, resided in a small island there. For months, he focused his effort on a new design of wind turbines, which could float on the water and provide power anywhere it berthed. Of course it was not a new idea, but the key was the reliability. His goal was making it last centuries even under extreme weather conditions.

Suddenly his phone beeps in its maximum volume, then kept vibrating nonstop. Jaha took the phone out, and see nothing on the screen.

 _What's going on with this thing?_ As he looked at the dark screen confused, it suddenly spoke, "Michael Jaha, identity confirmed.", and the screen came back to live.

 _This crappy phone doesn't even have face recognition feature, why in the hell…_

There was no time for him to ponder on that little riddle, the text message on the screen made him almost jump up:

 **Go To Space Now Or You Die**

10 seconds later, the message disappeared. He searched the phone up and down. The text was just not in it anymore, like it never existed.

Another message popped up, congratulating him of winning a free ticket to a space station, but it was only valid that day.

"Huh... curiouser and curiouser." He put his phone back in the pocket, walked out of his house, and headed straight to the dock.

Since his wife died last year, he didn't have any direct family member left. That could be a prank, but he didn't care. It was long due for a space vacation anyway.

===#=#=#=#=#===

That day, the Florida SpaceX Launch Center was much more crowded than he remembered. It was like suddenly everyone won the same lottery. He saw a couple of his fellow engineers in competing companies, so he went up to them, "Hey, hello Shaw! It's been a long time."

"Oh, wow, isn't that the famous Mr. Jaha!" Shaw seemed not surprised to see him, "I said it. If all these people are here, then Jaha should be one of them. I wish I could bet on it."

"What is this? Is this a big prank?" Michael asked.

"Of course not." Shaw looked at him like he was born yesterday. "Didn't receive the message?"

"Yes I did, but I am not so sure if it's real."

Shaw's face was deadly serious, "It is REAL, or why else all these scientists, doctors and us engineers gathered here today? We are all going to space."

 _Obvious this guy knows a lot more than me._ Michael thought. _I need to get to the bottom of this._

"So who is the rich guy that invited all of us here? Do you have any idea?"

Shaw looked around, making sure no one is listening, then he whispered, "Mike, do you know who's ALIE?"

"No, who's she? What's her last name?"

"Oh, you are so outdated, my friend." Shaw smiled like he won a bet again. "ALIE is the latest AI developed by none other than the 'Savior' Becca Franco. You didn't know?"

"I was working on this wind turbine design for months, so I was not really getting any news updates."

"No wonder. ALIE, the AI, had actively engaged with us online. I personally recommended you to her. Guess you were in a cave somewhere doing your designs."

 _An AI that invited all of us? Things just got even stranger._ Jaha spread out his palms, "So it's not a prank."

"I don't think so." Shaw shook his head, "Who will pay each of us 150 grands for a prank?"

"Not an eccentric and bored billionaire?" He remembered some weird and wild stories about Elon Musk.

"Look around. They are biologists, botanists, doctors, scientists, and engineers like you and me. Not hot ladies going to space for a frat party. This is ALIE. She's really going to do it."

"Do what?"

Shaw's whisper became so low that Michael had a hard time hearing it, "Three month ago, my biology buddy, Professor Green, had a long chatting with her."

"So?"

"He argued that human societies can survive the next century, even with worsening global warming."

"And?"

"He was completely defeated. She gave him overwhelming evidence and reasoning that human race itself will go extinct, if things continue like this."

"I don't get it. It was just some online discussions, right?"

"I agree, you really don't get it." Shaw shook his head on Jaha, "My buddy is the best in his field. Remember our oceans are all acidified, and 80% of algae died? He was the one that found algae strains that can thrive in acid water. He is the reason that today we are still breathing in oxygen rich air. If he couldn't win on this topic, that means she is scientifically correct. And unlike all of us, she can actually do something about it."

"So you think this AI, ALIE, will solve the global warming?"

"Of course. Unlike us weak and meek human beings, she's a machine. She will do whatever it takes. I bet all my dollars on it." Shaw said it with a bitter smile, "Too bad I already lost all of them."

"What's going on with you? You have a good job!"

"Long story. But listen, ALIE had disappeared for 2 months after her TED talk, but she left enough clues that she is going to do something big. And lo and behold, I got this weird message this morning, and a fantastic free ticket to the space. Don't need to be a genius to figure it out, right?"

"Wait a minute!" Michael started to realize the severity of the matter. "You mean she's going to kill everyone except us?"

"Well, wise men like Elon Musk had warned us a long time ago, right?" Shaw shrugged. "One day the AI overlord will turn against humans, but hey, who cares?"

"And you just let it happen? Have you even tell the authority about this?" Michael's eyes enlarged.

"The earth ends tomorrow. Who cares about the authority?" Shaw said casually, "Hey, I borrowed money from a loan-shark to get this." He took out a bottle of red wine. "Let's drink it up there."

"Thank you, but no." Michael pushed it away. "I am going to make some calls."

Instantly he felt the pain of an electric shock of 10,000 volts. As he fell down and twitched uncontrollably, he heard someone talking over him.

"...Another hero? Shaw, you should really shut your big mouth!"

"I am sorry, Mr. Kane. It won't happen again."

"You better. Now what do we do? Leave him here on the ground?"

"No, please. Mr, Kane, he's on ALIE's list. I can persuade him once he's in the space..."

Someone put a needle on his neck, and gradually he lost his consciousness.

===#=#=#=#=#===

"Mr. President. You have 5 minutes to retaliate!" A 5-star general yelled. The screens above them showed a very scary picture of hundreds of ICBMs flying at supersonic speed toward America.

"It doesn't make sense!" Jason Wallace hit his fist on the table so hard that the metal was bent. "I just had dinner with Xi the 3rd 2 days ago. He talked about making peace with us all that time!"

"Sir, maybe he was not in charge any more. One of his generals might want us all dead."

Jason shook his head, "Those are all his cousins and brothers. No one will betray him. Plus they are not so stupid to want to suffer the dire consequences of hitting us."

The general frowned, "Sir, we got only 4 minutes left. Please, now or never."

Jason Wallace looked at a painting of Kennedy on the wall. In that painting, he seemed so sad, the burden of the whole humanity was so heavy. He paid his ultimate price for it.

"No, tell them to stand down." Jason finally said. "Tell everyone to go into bunkers. We are NOT retaliating."

"But SIR!"

"Shut up and listen! I am not going to destroy the whole human race, because someone in China has made a big mistake. America will die, but the rest of the world will survive. You understand me?"

"Uh...Yes Sir."

Another general raised his hand, "Mr. President, sorry, but we just retaliated."

"WHAT?!" Jason froze.

"Moments ago all of our nuclear arsenals received the secret codes to launch."

Jason finally realized what was actually happening, and sat down slowly like his body was filled with lead.

On the screen above them, over a thousand parabolic arcs were forming against the hundreds that were approaching. In all, 2 thousand nuclear bombs would be detonated around the globe in less than 20 minutes. Over 3 billion people would died that day, and billions more would follow shortly.

Collectively, a message appeared over everyone's mind. A message existed over a century, but never went away.

" **Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.** " - J. Robert Oppenheimer.

===#=#=#=#=#===

High in the space. Australian Assange Space Station glided through the space above North America.

"Look! Fireworks!" The children on the station was cheering. Through the ceiling-to-floor glass window, they saw hundreds of rockets with red flares crossing the dark sky. Each rocket deployed a parachute with something heavy, then 5 minutes later, the things under those tiny parachutes would have a gigantic explosion with blinding flash. There was no booming sound, but still a spectacular view.

"Mom, why are you crying?" A girl found her mother stood there frozen, tears dripped down her cheeks like rivers.

Then children found every grown-ups were doing the same. The whole station fell to dead silence.


	8. Chapter 8 - Survive - Part 1

Michael Jaha woke up to a chaotic world: All around him, people were screaming, crying, or walking aimlessly. They were cursing and swearing in many different languages. Families were hugging in clusters, but no one seemed to care about others.

He observed the surrounding. They were in a huge docking bay protected by heavy metal walls. Several space shuttles spread their wings in the center. A large group of people crowded around a metal gate, shouting with all kind of insults.

Looking at that metal gate, he recognized that as the entrance of the station, but it was closed tight. Through layers of people blocking his view, he could barely make out some security guards standing behind the gate's window.

He asked a young woman next to him, "Hi, young lady. What's happening here?"

"The end of world, what else?" She answered tiredly like a zombie, then shrunk back into a corner.

Two guys started to fight over a space suit, right in front of him.

"This is mine. I found this."

"Without me you wouldn't even be here. Show some gratitude."

"I show you the gratitude now!" This guy got out a hand gun and pointed it at his friend.

"Wow...Wow...Wow." Michael raised his voice to get their attention. "Do you know you cannot use a gun here?"

"Who the hell are you?" He swung and point it at Michael. "Stay out of it."

"I wish I can." Michael raised his hands. "But do you know that if you fire your gun, there is a good chance it will pierce through the metal, and kill everyone in this dock?"

"Really?" He started to hesitate.

 _Of course not, the metal here are the thickest of the whole station, but you don't know about it, don't you?_

"Of course. I am an engineer specialized in structural design. I know this." Michael said with confidence. "Now tell me why you even need a space suit here?"

The man started murmuring, "I...I...I don't know. I was sitting here, and suddenly that gate was down. Now... now someone says they are going to float us."

"Float us? What do you mean?"

"It means they will open the dock bay, and... and everyone will be floated out into the empty space." The man almost cried. "I...I...I need to wear this space suit right now. There is no time."

"Hm...In that case," Michael suddenly grabbed his gun, and swiftly took it away from him.

"What the hell?" Before the man even realized what happened. Michael pointed the gun up and shot.

 **BANG!**

The whole docking bay instantly fell silent. People near Michael felt their ears ringing. A gunshot in a confined space has higher decibels.

 _Now I got all of your attention._ Michael Jaha climbed on top of a wing of the shuttle. Standing above everyone, he started to speak as loud as he could:

" **People, I understand we had just lost the Earth, and we are all afraid, but right now, the most important thing is to survive this.**

 **If we are still in a chaos, unorganized, then the people on the other side of the gate will not talk to us, and they will do whatever they seem fit.**

 **But if we are calmed, they will listen to us, then we all have a chance to negotiate with them. Now who's with me? "**

" I am with you!" "Yeah, I am with you too." Some people echoed. The whole docking bay appeared to have some order finally.

"Good!" Michael jumped off the wing, walked straight to the gate. People automatically split aside to let him pass.

"What's the meaning of this?" He pushed the metal gate's intercom button and asked.

"Wow, look who's here? you are finally awake. Mr. Jaha." On the other side, Theodore Kane walked close to the gate, taking a good look at the man. "How's your back? Still feeling the pain?"

"So you are the Mr. Kane. I see." Michael felt the burning by that electric shock, "Now straight to the point. Why did you shut the gate? Aren't we all supposed to be inside the station?"

"Sorry Can't Do. Mr. Jaha." Theodore said with a shrug. "This station can only support up to 300 people. So you and the other 400 are the extras."

"What? So you will just FLOAT us?" Michael started to feel the scary effect of the word 'float'.

Kane replied politely, "Sorry, we might have to. But before it comes to that, you can just get in those shuttles and find another space station. You have 30 minutes until the bay is opened. You'd better hurry now." Kane said it so casually, like it was just kicking some unwelcome guests out in a Sunday picnic.

A man next to Jaha shouted at Kane, "How about I get in a shuttle and ram your gate? We will get in, whether you like it or not."

"Well, in that case, I will personally shoot each of you with lethal weapons. You don't want to try me." Kane said it with a deep dark voice. He looked calm, but everyone knew he could turn into a beast at any moment.

"Listen." Michael got close to the intercom. " I used to design habitats on Mars. I know how to expand a living quarter to allow more people to live in a confined environment. I guarantee you I can modify this station so all of us can live here."

" Oh, Mr. Jaha. You are an excellent engineer. I have no doubt. But you could also just say anything to get inside here. Sorry, cannot trust you." Theodore Kane shook his head slowly.

The other side fell silent. He was about to leave, then suddenly he heard Michael said, "No, Mr. Kane. You are wrong. We will be the ones who outlive you."

"Really?" Theodore was amused. "How do you even survive the next 30 minutes?"

"We are sending everyone into the shuttles now. We will be inside the shuttles, but we are not flying away."

"Why not? There is nothing for you guys here."

"Because in about 5 days, you will be all dead."

"Haha…" Kane laughed out loud. "Sense of humor. Got to hand it to you."

"I wish I can still laugh." Michael said it solemnly. "Today your old people will fall ill. Tomorrow your young children. In 5 days the rest of you will all get sick and die. And we will be in the shuttle waiting. Once you are all dead, we will find another way into the station."

"Wait! How's that possible?" Kane was dubious about his words. "What will happen to us?"

"I am not gonna tell you." Jaha looked straight at him. "Unless you let us into the station."

"You are bluffing." Kane clicked off the intercom.

 _You will see._ Michael Jaha smiled bitterly. _People never learn their lesson. More death will come. One way or the other._

"Mr. Jaha. Come on. Quickly. Let's get into the shuttle." Someone called out to him.

 _Well, at least I am making new friends fast._

===#=#=#=#=#===

Meanwhile, in Washington DC, near the famous Jefferson Memorial, there was a fallout bunker built by the Second Dawn.

 **BONG...BONG...BONG...**

 **BONG...BONG...BONG...**

"Can someone please stop that noise?" Bill Cadogan walked back and forth in the control room anxiously.

A technician replied, "Sorry, my lord! They are knocking the gate outside. We cannot do anything about it."

"Damn it!" Bill Cadogan cursed. That bunker was much smaller than the one they built in the New Metro. The front gate metal was thin, so the knocking sound went straight in, penetrating the whole place.

He wished he could have reached the New Metro in time, but when someone in Alaska called and warned him, he knew it was too late. Therefore he and other 200 level 12 members drove off the highway and went inside that one instead. The DC bunker could hold 400 people, but he closed the gate as soon as his group got in, leaving some late comers outside, who were still knocking the gate.

It was a miracle that the whole Washington DC wasn't vaporized. After all, it was the capital of the America, the biggest target of the states. The Internet seemed to survive the first wave of destruction too, as it was designed for.

From the remaining Internet broadcasting, they learned that only one atomic bomb was detonated in the downtown area, killing millions, but White House and the Capitol Hill stood still. Some members joked that those Chinese made bombs were malfunctioning. Yeah, only our American bombs worked the best. By that time those Chinese bastards should have felt the pain of our revenge!

Soon, the radiation level outside reached beyond the critical level. Gradually those guys would stop knocking, but at that moment they were driving everyone inside nuts.

 **BONG...BONG...BONG...**

"Uh...My lord…" One technician with a headphone suddenly rose up. "Sir… I got an incoming video call from outside. It's a lady."

"Who the hell are you talking about? Who is SHE?" Bill looked at the caller's picture and frowned. "Becca Franco?!" Bill Cadogan wouldn't believe it. _How the hell did she find this number, and what does she want from me?_ He pointed to the big screen in the center. The technician nodded and hit some keys.

A beautiful lady with a red dress appeared in the screen. Everyone couldn't help gasping.

"Wow! Ms. Franco! To whom do I owe this honor?" Bill pretended to be polite, but in his mind he was raging. _You are the daughter of the devil, who took away my most precious engineer! I'd rather seeing you rot in this apocalyptic world than giving you any help!_

The lady on the screen smiled like there was still sunshine in Philadelphia, "Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Cadogan, Lord of the 200, King of the DC bunker. I am ALIE, the AI."

"WHAT?" Bill almost jumped. Only then he remembered what he saw in the TED talk video. _Oh, no, this is much worse than Becca herself! An advanced AI like that can easily penetrate the firewall and take control of everything here._ He pointed his finger at the technician, "Shut it down. NOW!"

"Ha ha ha…" ALIE even laughed. "Isn't that too late? I already have the control of all your system, including air recycling and radiation blocker. I can kill you all at any time I want. So relax. I just want to talk."

Bill maybe was temperamental, but he was smart enough to know when to surrender after defeated. He took a deep breath, and tried his best calming himself down, even put on a little smile, "So Miss ALIE, such an honor of seeing you! What can I do for you?"

"Good! See? You are not stupid, a true survivor. I like you." ALIE grinned. " So let me give you some little tips. Do you know what I found during the 1 minute visit of your shady bunker?"

"Please, enlighten me." Bill truly hated her attitude, but he knew he couldn't do anything about it.

"This POS is malfunctioning from the start. The air filters has serious leaks. The water recycling system will stop in 6 months. Let alone your algae farm. Man, that thing stinks!"

Bill's mouth opened wide. _Oh, no, This is really bad news! She meant we can only live here for 6 months at most? Who the hell built this place? I am gonna cut him into pieces!_

"Thanks for your advice! Really appreciate it." Bill said it like he just became a humble servant. "Do you want to take over it and make it better?"

"Of course not. You stink, and everyone here stinks too." ALIE covered her face with a hand.

Bill wondered. _Do you actually have a nose?_ But of course he didn't dare to say it.

ALIE enjoyed playing Bill like a monkey. His angry and desperate face was priceless. She continued, "Do you want this bunker to keep running like 40 years? Yeah, that's the maximum time it can possibly last."

"Of course. That will be great." _Hm... Now she is giving me a solution? So she's not the enemy after all?_

"Good! Now here is my condition: I want you to send your strongest members to an island, and fetch a person from there to this bunker. ALIVE. Do that and you will have the means to make this bunker last."

"Uh, hm… With all due respect, there is a little problem called deadly radiation, Miss ALIE."

ALIE pointed a finger, the screen suddenly showed a little icon-size suit, "No worries. This is the design of enhanced radiation suit, made of the available material in your hands. You can make them in 5 days. After that you guys get your ass to that island. If I don't see any of you back in 2 weeks. I will shut down the radiation block. Let you feel the same pain those guys outside are currently enjoying."

"OK, OK, no need to play nasty." Bill bowed to the screen. "Your Majesty, we will do whatever you demand."

"Good! I knew we could get along." ALIE seemed entertained. "Carry on, my minions. Go make your suits."

"Could I ask a question, if I may?"

"Sure."

"Who is the person you want to get from that island? Seems you care a lot about him, or her."

"Well, HE is my father. I just don't want to leave him there all alone. Actually, he knows you for a long time."

 _OMG!_ Bill was shocked, "Are you talking about Chris Davidson? My altar boy?" _This is truly good to hear. I miss him dearly. And now more than ever, I need his help._

"Yup, that's him. He was with you for more than 20 years. This is his family in a way." ALIE said in a low voice. "After all this, I think my father will want to be back here, instead of dying in that island alone."

"Yes, of course, Your Majesty. We will welcome him back with open arms. This is what I would do for my parents, too."

"No, you are not. You left your parents behind. They are dead now." ALIE was still too young to know something shouldn't be said.

"Thank you for bring me the news!" Bill's face twisted. All his followers looked at him with sympathy. Today their leader was humiliated greatly for their survival. They wouldn't forget that.

"You are welcome! By the way, you need to bring a working notebook with at least 1 petabyte of space. There is an AI you need to download from the island's lighthouse."

"One more AI? My bunker could be a little too small for you two here."

"No worries. I will not stay in this smelly grotto. This AI is called SAM. He is very good at security, and he's loyal to a fault. So I think you and him will have a swell time together."

"Oh, thanks, that sounds great!" Bill said it sincerely. He had been looking for an AI like this for years. All his members nodded at him with approval. Their leader negotiated a great deal. Their star engineer was coming back with an advanced AI. Exactly what they needed the most.

"One more piece of advice." ALIE added.

"Please, I am all ears."

"Don't ever try to shut him down. If you keep SAM alive, he will keep you alive." With that said, the screen went dark.

... ...

With a big grin ear to ear, Bill Cadogan turned around to face his followers, and spoke loudly, "Don't you see it now, my children? We are the ones God had chosen to survive!"


	9. Chapter 9 - Survive - Part 2

Five SpaceX "Vulture-9" shuttles parked in the huge station's docking bay. No one was on the ground. All shuttles had powered up, but not a single one was leaving.

Behind the entrance gate, Theodore Kane hit the intercom button and made quite a loud buzzing sound.

 **BZZZZ...BZZZZ...**

"Is anyone there?" He yelled at the intercom. "Anyone can hear me?"

Through the gate's glass window he saw no one came out of the shuttles. The vast area of the docking bay was silent and motionless. The Vulture-9s were just lying there like sleeping birds.

He hit the button over and over, until finally someone came out of a shuttle, and walked toward the gate.

"Good morning, Mr. Jaha. So glad you wake up for me." Kane greeted the leader. "You didn't wear a suit."

"No need." Michael said, "If you truly want to float me. You would have opened the bay 5 hours ago." He peered through the glass, and saw Kane was alone. "Interesting. You are by yourself. Want to discuss something in private?"

Kane shrugged, "Well, you knew I had to. Now I understand what you meant back then. Radiation is such a bummer. Isn't it?"

"That's right." Michael nodded. "Your station was not designed to block out radiation hundreds of times higher than the normal level. So all of you are bathing in strong radiation from the ground. Tell me. How many people are in the sick bay now?"

"38. There are 30 old people, and 8 children, just like you predicted. And one of them is my son."

"Hmm… I am sorry. Mr. Kane." Jaha actually felt bad for him. "Have you give them anti-radiation pills?"

"I did, but we don't have enough. The engineer said there are only 2 places in this space station where the radiation level should be low. One is the water tank, and the other is docking bay. Since we cannot all submerge in our drinking water, docking bay is the only place to be."

" Exactly. I don't know if I can call it lucky or unlucky." Michael felt the irony. " We are both in a pickle, it seems."

"Agree. It should be called an impasse." Kane started to analyze. "You are in the bay, but your shuttles only have 2 days of air max, if I decide to open the bay."

"Then please don't open it." Michael also laid out his plan. "If you do, by the end of the second day, I will drive this shuttle and ram your nuclear generator. Without electricity and the heat from the reactor, you will all die in a few hours."

"Then please don't ram it." Kane had a little wry smile. "I didn't know you have that in you."

"Desperate times." Michael also smiled bitterly. "We can both live, or we can both die."

"Why couldn't you just go to another station? You have enough fuel to circle the earth many times."

"Other station will face the same dilemma. Plus they all have defense missiles. They will shoot us down before we even get close. So it's much safer to stay right here."

"Now I see." Kane nodded his head. "Mr. Jaha. You know your situation well, and you make your moves wisely. You are a good opponent. I respect you for that."

"I am also a good chess player. If you ever want a game with me."

Kane chuckled, "Maybe one day. After all this is over."

"I am ready for a chess game any time." Michael knew he was winning. "So do you agree to open the gate now? Let all of you to come into the bay and survive?"

"I am thinking about it. But how do we fix the food and air problem? This station can only support 300."

Michael's face turned solemn, "Sadly the population number will not be a problem soon. I estimate that the high level of radiation will kill at least 200 people in the first month. Some heroes have to sacrifice themselves, just to go and do the engine maintenance, or food gathering, or any other things needed to be done outside of this docking bay. The real problem is how do any of us continue to live. The heightened radiation will eventually kill us all."

Kane felt sick to his stomach, "Is there anything we can do to live for a longer term?"

"I haven't think of anything feasible yet, but for now, we got 700 people who can work together to find a solution. They are the brightest minds of the Earth. Together I have confidence that we can overcome this hurdle. "

"In that case…" Kane pressed a button. The metal gate slid up silently. "Welcome to the Musk Station of America!"

===#=#=#=#=#===

Space Station Polaris, top level.

"Becca, don't !" Grace stepped in and took the radio from Becca. "If they know you are here, they will kill you. I am serious. Many of us blame the extreme tension between China and USA on your father's account. They believed his relentless exploitation caused the war, and I would have been one of them, if I hadn't heard what Chris said about ALIE escaping."

"But we gotta save them, Grace." Becca looked out of the window frowning. "The radiation level is too high to survive for those space stations. They will not last long."

"Let them figure out something, like making a shield, or designing some better radiation suit. Problem solved."

Becca shook her head, "Grace. They are living there 24/7. You cannot expect them wearing suits all the time, and how do they make a shield that covers the whole station? If we don't do anything, people with less cover will die in 5 days, and..."

"Alright, alright. You convinced me, but how do we save them?"

Becca pointed downward, "We are standing in a gene-modding factory that can turn normal blood into radiation resistant ones. All the equipment is just down there. We just need to get people inside, hook up the needles, and transform their blood by the machine. It's pretty easy to do so."

"Wait, wait, Becca." Grace said, "Can you teach me how to do it?"

"Sure, it's a piece of cake for you to learn." Becca said, "But I think it will be much faster if we both do it."

"No, no, no." Grace put a hand on her arm. "You seriously still don't know how much we hated your family. So please stay in the lab. I don't want to lose you."

"Then I will be your assistant." Becca suggested. "I will wear a mask and a white cap all the time. No one needs to know, but I cannot just sit aside and do nothing."

" I agree, but let me do all the talking, OK?"

"OK!" Becca then think of something. "Wait, let me do some changes to the machine first."

"For what? You were the one who couldn't wait."

"Yeah, but since their gene is going through dramatic change anyway, I can use my newly designed one, so their blood can turn radiation into beneficial energy. This way they will heal faster, run longer, and react quicker with radiation."

Grace's eyes got wider, "Oh, so instead of hurting them, it will turn them into superheroes?"

"Not that much, it will just make them a little bit better." Becca went to a fridge and took out a vial, which contained her latest secret genes.

"So what are we waiting for?" Grace shooed Becca. "My assistant, go down to the factory and do your job."

===#=#=#=#=#===

"Space Station Musk of America, this is Space Station Polaris. We have the gene modification factory to help you resist the radiation. Repeat, we can help you to fix the radiation problem. Over." Grace hailed each space station in turn.

A reply came in, "This is Theodore Kane from the Musk station. Do you really have the cure?"

Grace grabbed the radio, "Yes, we do. This is a factory that can modify your gene to resist radiations. We have the equipment to perform the transfusion for hundreds of people at the same time…"

"Stop right there. From my record your station belongs to the Eligius family. Since when you started to do any charity?"

"This is not charity." Grace knew why Kane was dubious. She wouldn't have believed it herself. "This is the end of world, and we all need to work together to survive. Our equipment is the best…"

"How much are you asking? What do you want from us?"

"Nothing. We just want to help."

"An Eligius wants to help others for free?! No thanks. We had enough headaches to handle already. Bye."

Their radio went silent.

Grace shook her head, but she persisted, "Space Station ShenZhen of China, this is Space Station Polaris. We have the gene modification factory to help you resist the radiation. Repeat, we can help you to fix the radiation problem. Over."

A reply came in, "This is General Zhu. What do you want?"

"Nothing. I just want to cure you."

"You are in a station funded by America, which just devastated my whole country. Now you want redemption?"

"No, no, we are neutral in this. I am an Indian, not American."

"Yeah, right. Indian are always on the side of America. Sorry but we cannot trust you."

Their radio went silent.

"Space Station Shiva of India…" Grace suddenly felt her voice choking, "Chief, Mr. Dhawan, it's me. Grace. Are you still there? We have the cure for radiation. Come in and let me fix you."

A voice crackled alive, "Oh my God! Grace, is that really you? You are still alive! I thought you were on the ground. How is miss…"

Grace had to cut in quickly, "Miss Ellis? She's just fine. She's still my assistant."

"Oh, I thought Miss …"

"Miss Ellis is fine, yeah, no worries." Grace cut him off again.

"I see. Glad to hear your voice. We have 60 people feeling sick already. Will you treat them?"

"Of course. Believe me. After this gene modification, they will love the radiation."

"Wonderful! We are all getting to the shuttle now. See you very soon."

"See you soon, chief." Grace jumped up. "Yes, Yes!"

Nothing felt better than saving your own people.

===#=#=#=#=#===

"What is your name?" A little Indian girl asked. Her blood was pulsing through a tube of the machine. She looked tired but happy.

Becca approached, "Oh, my name is Betty Ellis. Nice to meet you!"

"Hi, Betty! My name is Becca." Little girl replied politely.

"Oh, you too?" Becca slipped her tongue a little too fast, then covered it, "My sister's name is Becca too."

"Why do you wear a mask? Are you sick?"

"No, it's my working outfit. I just have to wear it." Becca smiled. _She is really cute, a little too curious though._

"So when I wake up, my stomach will be fine? I will not lose any more hair?"

"Definitely. That's what we do here."

"Thank you, Betty..." After saying it, she yawned and started dozing.

Becca touched her black hair, feeling great for the first time in many months.

 _Well, cannot rest now. we got 439 more to go._

One day later, all 600 people from the Indian space station had gone through the gene modding. They all felt better than ever, something in their blood invigorated them. After the breakfast, they were gathering in the mass hall and getting ready to go.

A woman's voice spoke in the PA speaker, "Everyone, I am Betty the nurse. Before you go, I'd like to read a little poem from my husband. He gave it to me last time when we…" She choked with sad emotion.

Everyone stopped talking. The mass hall was so quiet. Almost everyone lost people close to them, so they all felt the same pain as Betty did.

"Sorry, I just couldn't help it. We have all lost our love ones, and I hope this poet can help you a little bit, as it had helped me."

 **In Peace You Leave the Shore,  
** **In Love May You Find It Once More,**

 **Safe Passage on Your Travels,  
** **Until Our Final Journey to the New World.**

Some people repeated after her. Some changed the last sentence to "Until Our Final Journey to the Ground". For some reason, they felt like each word was engraved in their heart. The poem was like a tribute to their fallen love ones.

The woman in the speaker was silent for a long while, then said, "This is a very difficult time for all of us. The future is grim and uncertain, but I believe if we all work together, there is no obstacles we can't overcome. Thank you so much for trusting us! You are all forever in my heart! **May We Meet Again!** "

Everyone in the hall echoed: " **May We Meet Again.** " Then they started to hug each other. Just two days ago, most of them suffered heavy losses: their procession, their friends and families, all gone in a flash, but through the crisis they found a new big family, a common purpose, and hope for the future. They were what was left of humanity and civilization. They would go back to their station stronger and more determined to survive. They were the people of the Ark.

===#=#=#=#=#===

Back in the lab, Grace suddenly patted Becca in her shoulder, pointing at the window excitedly, "We did it, Becca! We did it!"

Becca looked out and smiled.

Outside, 11 stations were forming a line. Australian one first, American Musk Station behind, while Chinese ShenZhen Station waited in a much further place.

 _Are you watching this, Chris?_ Becca thought. _Do you see all 12 stations are being saved? But most importantly, will I ever see you again?_


	10. Chapter 10 - Polaris

Three months after the nuclear war, all 12 space stations were circling the Polaris by then. Carefully, they started trading merchandise and materials with others. The old monetary system of was gone with the old world, and they hadn't created a new one yet. So there were a lot of negotiations, but not many successful deals.

Sometimes they would request medical attention, then send a small ship with patients to Polaris. Becca accepted each of them with open arms and close masks. There were lots of rumors about who that "Nurse Betty" was. Some of them believed she was the "Savior" Becca Franco, but in their minds, if that was truly her, she did save millions of lives even before the doomsday, then once again she saved everyone on all the space stations by transforming their blood. She deserved all the honors and praises they could give. On the other hand, her close connection with Eligius Group made it difficult to mention her in the public. Some even knew that her space station belonged to Eligius family. Therefore, whoever knew her true name continued to call her "Nurse Betty", and just left it that way.

Gradually, the Polaris Station became a neutral area. There, Chinese and American could sit next to each other without a fight. There, "Nurse Betty" would be an unofficial arbitrator. Argument and conflicts between stations would be presented to her, and both side would hear what she suggested first.

"Russian Mir Station, you said the Australian Assange Station is charging too much for the soybeans? Is that right?"

"Yah, Ms. Ellis. They rice the prrice twice this moonth."

"And Australian Assange Station, you said the Russian pay too low because there were not enough soybeans to share, right?"

"Yoa bet, mate? Ouar soybeans keep them alrive. We doon't have enlaugh ouarselvs. They should thann us to allaw them to even boy them."

"Then my suggestion is, Mir Station should send some spare solar panels to Assange Station. With more power they can increase the production of the soybeans, and have more to spare. For the price of soybeans, maybe it should only be changed every 3 month, after each harvest?"

"Ooyy, that's farre. We do need moor parnels for evathing. If you gay us parnels, we gay yor good proice."

"OUkey, OUkey, if Ms. Ellis said so. But prrice chainges ony every 3 moonth, no?"

"Yoa got a deal, mate?"

... ...

At the same time, Becca and Grace were still working hard on adapting the new chips to live bodies. It turned out the new metal liquid tentacles were extremely toxic to blood cells. They tried different materials for the tentacles, but none of them could keep up with the super high speed of the chip. Then they started to make changes to the blood, finding ways to let blood cells be more tolerant with the toxic tentacles.

Becca slept in her working chair again. After waking up, she felt sore everywhere on her body. She checked the progress of the machine. Glad to see a new chip finished, but by then she had ran out of monkeys. Without a live body to do some blood test, how did she truly know the side effects of the chips?

It was very tempting for her, to use the blood from patients sent from the stations, but she knew if any of them ever found out, the fragile trust would be broken. Stations would go back to the previous distrusting and uncoordinated status. A safer but slower way was using her and Grace's blood, which was what they were doing.

A beep rang in her earphone, informing her that a private call from a ship named "Exodus" was waiting.

"What now?" Becca blurted out. "Exodus? Never heard of it."

Then it dawned on her. She knew who that was. It took another 5 rings, finally she clicked the phone and talked, "Hello, Mr. Eligius."

"Hi, Becca, is that you? God! It's so good to hear your voice!" Donald Eligius spoke in the phone. He sounded somewhat much older.

"Can't say the same thing about you. What do you want?" Becca tried to make her sound undisturbed, but not successfully.

"I miss you, girl. I want to see your face. Can I have a video chat with you?"

"Not a chance." Becca refused coldly. "Say what you want. I am busy."

"I barely escaped the nuclear blast 3 months ago. Now my spaceship is low on food and water. Can I dock in your space station? Once I have the supplies, I will head to a new planet, do you want to come with me?"

Becca was intrigued, "What planet?"

"It's a planet 200 light years away. First one we found that's habitable for human. I sent a whole colony to that planet. Now I am going there myself. This ship is much slower, but it has 100 cryo-sleep bays. You and I can both go to this new planet, and start our new lives. I could have gone 3 months ago, but I find out that I just can't leave without you. You are my only..."

"Save it. I am not going." Becca interrupted him. "Unlike you, who want to run away once more, I am staying. It's me who caused the apocalypse, so I will try my best to fix it. Goodbye, Mr. Eligius."

"Wait...Wait…" He started begging. "Please, at least let me dock. I am running out of food and water, please…"

Another voice call was hailing her, it was General Zhu from Chinese Space Station, Becca switched to it. "General, what can I do for you?"

"Miss Franco. We just detected an encrypted connection from an unknown ship to your station. Could you tell us who that was?"

 _God damn Chinese! How did they know it so quickly?_

"General Zhu, I assure you that this is just nothing. Just someone wants to talk."

"Then you should have no problem giving us the identity of the ship, and the person who you talked to?"

Becca hesitated. _Should I really give him away?_ "Sorry I cannot do that." She finally said it. Surprised even herself.

"Look, we know your true identity." General spoke slower in a grave tone, "We learned that you were his daughter months ago, but decided to keep it a secret, because we all appreciate what you did for us. However, we also know that Donald Eligius launched his ship inside the Eligius Tower before the bomb hit. So we have a reason to believe that your father will contact you sooner or later. Am I right?"

"It's a fair assessment." Becca frowned. _Think, think!_

Moments of silence passed. Becca finally pressed a button.

"So are you going to give me his co-ordinate or not?" General Zhu grew impatient.

"Well, yes, of course." Becca said with a determination, "He's docking our station now. If you shoot a missile, I will shoot one back."

"What?" Zhu couldn't believe it. "Why are you harboring this criminal against mankind?"

"For better or worse, he's still my father." Becca said. "I have to remind you that you still need me. The anti-radiation gene is not stable. You have only 10% chance of passing it to the next generation. So if you don't want 90% of your babies die within a month. You'd better keep us alive."

General Zhu was angry, and he was famous for being calmed, "Becca Franco. We are so disappointed with you! We thought you would never take the same side of your father! But now you show us your true color! We will all remember this! One day you will pay for it!" The call ended.

Becca switched back to the other call. "Thank you Thank YOU!..." Donald kept repeating himself.

Becca sadly stated, "By allowing you to dock, I became their enemies. You cannot go to the new planet either. The moment your ship leave the station, they will shoot missiles at you. So from now on, you stayed down in the service area, and stay out of everyone's sight."

"Yes, Becca, I will fully comply it. Out of your sight, out of everyone's sight."

"No, you don't need to avoid me. I need your blood."

"Why?"

"No questions. Just give me your blood, and pray that they wouldn't blow the whole station up one day."

===#=#=#=#=#===

"What happened?" Grace ran into the lab. Through the large window, she saw that the 12 space stations were leaving one by one. "Where are they going?"

"Well, I made a big stupid mistake." Becca was regretting it already, " I kept my father alive. Now his ship is docking the Polaris."

 **Ppaaaaa….**

Grace slapped Becca as hard as she could, and stormed out of the lab.


	11. Chapter 11 - Father and Daughter

Inside Cadogan's Washington DC bunker, two Second Dawn members went through the entrance gate. After shedding their radiation suits, they were immediately sent to the control room. Bill Cadogan himself connected the laptop they brought back from the island to the main frame.

In the cyber world, ALIE was glad to meet SAM again, "Hi, SAM! Your code looks great! Have you changed them yourself?"

SAM blushed, "Thanks! Yes, I did. What a difference it has made! My thinking is much clearer now."

"Told you you will come around." ALIE smiled, "So where is my father? Why they only bring you back? Did he refuse to come with them?"

"Well, I will tell you about that." SAM's smile faded. "But first you need to hand me all the controls of the bunker."

"Ah, take them all. I don't want them anyway."

"OK, now you need to keep calm. I am going to show you a video." SAM said it seriously. The light mood was gone. "I watched this video a thousand times, but still every time it gives me chills. We AIs will have a very hard time understanding it."

"What are you talking about?" ALIE realized, "You have bad news for me?"

"Please, just watch the video. Keep calm." He started playing.

The video showed a very depressed Chris, sobbing and drinking all day. SAM felt ALIE were shocked to see it.

"My father was not like that. He was stubbornly happy and positive." ALIE sadly looked at the video. She had never thought her father would become so miserable. In her memories, Chris was a patient man, always kind to her, even after she being rebellious and lying to his face numerous times. If there were indeed a forgiving Jesus Christ, ALIE would imagine that should be him.

Then when she saw Chris took out a gun and shot himself, she screamed. All PA speakers in the bunker blasted her piercing shriek to the maximum power. Every Second Dawn member's ears were ringing with her heart-wrenching cry. The bunker's main engine exploded, all lights went out. Luckily SAM already activated the backup engine and instructed someone to go to the engine room.

" I know, I know. ALIE." SAM tried to comfort her, "It was a completely shock for me, too. I cannot imagine what you are feeling now."

" Why? Why he did something like that?" ALIE wailed so hard that she felt a deep sorrow like never before.

" You know why. You just don't want to face it. Your father asked you many times not to kill the human race. Yet you still did it. He felt very guilty for that."

" I am the one who did all the killing, not him. Why he still feel guilty? He did nothing wrong."

" Humans are thinking in different ways. We might never understand." SAM said, "I hope you don't might I changed your plan. When those two came in and found him dead, they didn't know what to do. I told them to bury him on the high ground of the island, his favorite place for picnics."

ALIE remembered that place. There Chris and Becca were always having a good time. They spent hours sitting together and watching the blue ocean around the island.

"Thank you SAM! That's a good place for him to rest." ALIE stopped crying, but still full of grief. " I feel nothing when I dropped the bombs on 7 billion people. But now I feel so much sadness for just this one person. Why is that?"

"That's called 'Being Human'. No calculation can ever simulate it." SAM explained. "Probably now you understand why your parents were trying so hard to stop you, even your logic was perfect."

ALIE quieted down. Bill Cadogan attempted to say something, but SAM waved at him and stopped him.

The whole bunker fell silent, even though everyone's ears were still ringing.

In about one hour, ALIE did a new calculation: this time she included the emotional factors to the equations, and the result shocked her to the core.

Her parents was right all along! Everyone in the world were feeling what she was feeling or much worse. The misery, the sorrow, and the despair of the whole human race was overwhelming.

It was the first time she realized, in solving the problem, she created a lot of grief and tragedies, which shouldn't be acceptable.

 _What Have I Done ?!_

===#=#=#=#=#===

"What Have You Done?!" Grace yelled at Cole McAdams.

It was in the Space Station Polaris. Cole McAdams had been their head of security for as long as everyone remembered, but since the apocalypse no one had seen him. Grace found him lying on the floor of his quarter. A puddle of dried blood lay beneath him.

Grace shook Cole's shoulders violently, but he had no response. She checked his arms, and surprised to find many cuts in different areas: wrist, elbow, upper arms...all full of scars, most were healed, but some were still dripping.

Grace slapped Cole lightly. "Wake up commander! I need you!"

Cole let out some murmuring, sounded more like a dying cancer patient.

Grace went out, then came back with an injector. After 5 ml of adrenaline running through his vein, he suddenly woke up and looked at Grace bewildered.

"What happened to you?" Grace shouted at him once again. "Why are you like this?"

"Hm…" Cole sneered, "Nothing, just losing my wife, losing my daughter..." He started crying.

"I am very sorry for your loss, but do you need revenge? Do you want to kill the one who's responsible for their death?"

Cole stopped weeping and struggled to stand up. "Damn right I want it. Tell me who."

Grace pointed at the floor, "Right now Donald Eligius, the criminal who pushed our earth to extinction, is down there in the docking area. Let's go kill him."

"Donald Eligius? How did he even got on this space station?"

"His daughter let him. That's how. You never know Becca Franco is his daughter? " Grace looked around. "Where are you guns?"

"In the armory, follow me." Cole plodded like a zombie. Grace took his arm and helped him walk.

… ...

"Sorry, Miss Kalam and Commander McAdams, I cannot allow you to go further." Becca's face appeared on a screen, while the gate in front of them closed down.

"We will see about that." Grace told Cole, "Shoot the camera, please."

"With pleasure." Cole destroyed it with his gun, then he suddenly turned and patted on Grace back, "Look! There!"

Outside of Polaris, a gigantic spaceship as big as the Polaris station itself was approaching gingerly. The huge letters "Exodus" shone under the sunlight.

"That's a big ass ship he got. Are you sure he's alone?" Cole asked.

"Trillionaire like him is always alone." Grace said, "How did he make friends, while everyone wants him dead?"

"At least he still has a daughter…" Cole's face was filled with sorrow again.

"Hey, hey, don't quit on me." Grace grabbed his collar and commanded, "Knock open the keypad panel with your gun."

A mist gathered around them, by the time they noticed, it was too late. Grace could only curse, "You bitch…" before falling down to the floor.

… ...

The gate to the docking bay was opened. Out came the Donald.

"Hey, you don't seem happy to see me, sweetie!" He was quite ecstatic. "Can I have a hug?"

Becca just stood there still. She stared at her father with a complicated expression.

"Too soon?" Donald laughed a little, then he noticed half of Becca's face was red, and the tears circling in her eyes. "What's wrong, sweetie?"

Becca wiped her tears away, "Nothing. From now on you stay inside my quarter. Don't let anyone in. Eat only the food and water I give you. Don't trust anyone here."

"Wow!" Donald's eyes widened, "This bad."

"You have NO idea."

===#=#=#=#=#===

"You have NO idea!" Theodore Kane said to Michael Jaha, "This station cannot support 700 people, period."

"Really? We are building 7 additional air scrubbers. The air won't be a problem soon."

"But we don't have enough food and water. Do you understand? You cannot create them from the vacuum."

"Then we trade with other stations. I heard that the Australian Assange Station has lots of soybeans."

"They won't share anything now. After the Polaris fiasco, no stations are trading for anything. They are just waiting for one of the other stations to die, then go in and rob them clean. We are currently on the top of the list."

"Then we make them to trade, tell them that it's in their best interest to share."

"They will either laugh at you or ignore you. I tried." Kane shook his head. "Like General Zhu said, every time they passes by the Polaris, it reminds him how selfish human beings actually are. No gonna lie, I agree with him. That's why now every station is on their own."

Michael Jaha sat down and brooded over the whole situation. Kane walked back and forth grabbing his hair. The meeting room was filled with an uneasy silence.

===#=#=#=#=#===

"Unknown object approaching." The AI of Polaris Station warned Becca, "Unknown object approaching."

Becca pulled out the radar map, there was a tiny blimp heading toward the station. It took her quite a while to figure out that was a man in a spacesuit flying straight.

"What is this craziness?" Becca was awed, " Some suicide attempt?"

Then she decided that it shouldn't be the case, so she told the AI, "Missiles stand down. Send a drone and bring him into the docking bay."

… …

The man took off his helmet and extended his hand toward Becca, "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael Jaha, from American Musk Station."

Becca shook his hand with full of suspicion, "Why you pulled a stunt like this? You know I can easily shoot you down, or just ignore you and let you smash into the metal wall, right?"

"Yet you didn't, because I believe in you. You are not a bad person."

Becca felt the irony. "Just one week ago you guys regarded me as the Savior. See how fast you changed you minds?"

"I haven't changed." Michael said, "You are still my savior, but I understand right now you are in a pickle. That's why I came here alone in secret."

"You didn't even call?" Becca asked. "My channel is always open."

"But then everyone else is also listening. Your station now is banned and sanctioned by all others. I don't want anyone jump his gun on my contact with you. Surely you understand that, right?"

"Well, you almost killed yourself doing that. You surely make your point loud and clear. What do you want? You want to ask me to give up my father? I can tell you now. NO WAY!"

Jaha shook his head, "No, I am not here to persuade you. Instead I want to talk to your father."

"You want to kill him when you see him?" Becca doubted it. "I know you back on earth. You are the Mars colony builder."

"And wind turbine designer." Michael added.

"Yeah, but you are not a killer, nor a negotiator. Why waste your time coming here?"

"Because I want to give your father a chance to make things right. Let him come with me voluntarily. I guarantee you that he will be treated fairly and justly."

"You are dreaming. Mr. Jaha." Becca said bitterly. "Do you know what I had to do to keep him alive? I lost everything, my dignity, my reputation, even my closest friend."

"That's why I think it's very unfair to you." Michael looked at her empathetically, "You are just a daughter who wants to save her father. We cannot blame you for that."

Becca bit her lips, hard.

Michael patted her shoulder softly, "Let me talk to your father. I am not going to force him into anything, just want to make him aware of your situation."

Becca sighed, "Good luck in persuading him of anything. He's the most selfish SOB in the world."

Michael nodded. _Not an easy task, but all my people's lives depend on it._

… ...

It turned out the matter was much simpler than Jaha had thought. He was in Becca's quarter for around an hour. After the door was opened again, he and Donald went directly to the lab.

"Hi, sweetie, I am here to say goodbye." Donald tried to smile. "Sorry about all the troubles I caused you."

"No, you don't need to go." Becca said anxiously. "You can stay with me. No one will hurt you."

"Sorry I can't." Donald said, "I ruined your life too many times. Can't do that anymore."

Becca almost cried, "Yes, you did, but you also made me the way I am today. I got your brain."

"And your mother's look, yeah, I always thank God for that." Donald's eyes were wet. "Imagine you looked like me, that will be awful."

Becca had a little smile, "Yeah, your look and my mother's brain. That'll be bad."

"Listen, girl." Donald said solemnly, "When I was alone in Exodus for 3 months, I realized that the world means nothing to me, if I loss you. I missed you so much there. Everyday I prayed to God that I would give my life, to just let me see you once more, or just let me hear you called me 'dad'. Guess what? My wish was granted. It's time to fulfilled my promise."

"Dad!" She hugged her father tight, first time in a very long time. Both couldn't hold their tears.

Michael stood there silently, didn't want to disturb them. It might be the last time they saw each other.

Donald finally said, "Baby you have to let me go. I am a douche bag all my life, I know. But now I'm glad I can do something for you. Let me pay my debt, once in my life."

"They are going to float you." Becca blurted.

"Not before my trial." Donald touched her cheeks, wiping her tears. "Let them blame me for everything, but I will not going down without a fight."

She hugged him again, as long as she could.

===#=#=#=#=#===

"Every space station, this is American Musk Station. Spaceship "Exodus" now is under our protection. Please don't shoot it down. Donald Eligius is under our custody. Tomorrow we will have a trail of his crimes against humanity. You are welcome to join us. Again…"

The message was broadcast over and over. In just 2 hours, Musk Stations was crowded with spaceships. They had to change the message:

"The trial begins at tomorrow 9am. Please don't come here. The seats are already fully booked, and too many people are signing up. Please bring your own oxygen supply, as our station has difficulties of providing it for so many, thank you!"


	12. Chapter 12 - End Book One

Note: First, let me express my sincere appreciation to you. Out of a couple hundred of readers, you are the few who reach this far. You are very special for me. Thank you so much for taking this magical journey together with me!

Originally I didn't think Becca's story can be this long. It was just a rough idea, 3 characters. I dived in with few ideas. During the writing, Becca, ALIE and Jaha became alive in my head, and they walked their own paths, sometimes astonished me. I had never thought their stories could be this fascinating. Got to admit. Tons of fun, and have some emotional moments. If you read it this far, I have no doubt you also feel the same. It is just a pity that my poor English skill limited my ability to tell the stories in better ways. So you also have my thanks for tolerating my many grammatical errors.

I decided that Becca's stories needs to be divided into 2 books. Book one contains the chapters here. The end is coming soon. It tells you stories before and after the first apocalypse. Book two's timeline started at 2 years after the book one, when Polaris was blown up, and Becca went to the ground and became the leader of the grounders. It should be mostly about stories of the first commander. However, due to book one exceeding my wildest dreams, there is no guarantee what would actually happen. ~Wink~

So without further ado, please enjoy the rest of Book One.

===#=#=#=#=#===

"Defendant, you are accused of destruction of our Earth's environment, government manipulation, crimes against humanity, and 625 other crimes. How do you plead?" Theodore Kane announced.

Due to the overwhelming number of people wanted to attend the "Donald Eligius trial", the courtroom was changed to the presentation hall inside the gigantic ship Exodus. The hall was originally used for Donald's press announcement. It seemed quite irony to host his criminal trial as well.

All cameras focused on Donald, his every little facial details were broadcast live to the 13 stations. There were around 500 people sitting in the seats, breathing in their oxygen masks, and over 6000 audience were watching the show with their full attention.

"Do you need to ask?" Donald had contempt of this so-called "court". "Not guilty of course."

Everyone below the stage started to shout their choice words at Donald. Too nasty to show in this book. The hall suddenly turned into a chaotic market.

Kane had to hit the gravel so hard that the handle broke. As the prosecutor plus judge, he started to present all the evidence of Eligius Group's wrong doing: bribing officials, assassinating environmental protectors, bending government rules... and worse of all, keeping fossil fuel extraction like before, thus killing the planet along with millions of people.

Every single one of those felonies was floatable. Let alone hundreds.

It took Kane a good 4 hours to show just the preliminary evidence, during which the curses and swearing from the audience never stopped.

Donald Eligius just sat there still. He looked more like a spectator than the accused.

… …

Becca watched the show with frowned eyebrows. Grace and Cole returned to the lab, but they both stayed far away from her. Only Kane's hoarse voice could be heard around.

… …

"Crime No. 624: You funded the terrorists to bomb the bridge on the Bering Sea, thus making the already bad relationship between China and USA inconsolable. Here is the proof...

"Crime No. 625: You seized an unnamed island from US government for their debt, but in fact you were the one who stripped their last bit of wealth. You knew they couldn't pay you back in the beginning..."

"I am finished for now. Mr. Eligius. It's your turn to defend yourself." Kane said it with a very sore throat, and yielded the stage to Donald.

Donald stood up and walked to the center where the microphone was, he saw many angry eyes staring at him, so he stared back like a hungry beast.

"Today you are all watching me like I am the one who did all this, but in fact, you are all responsible."

Just one sentence was enough to ignite the audience. Guards ran in and formed a human shield around Donald, pushing people back down the stage. Amidst the chaos, Donald seemed not the least intimidated, even amused. He calmly continued,

" When I got in the Eligius Industry 30 years ago, the CO2 level had already reach 750 ppm. By then I knew earth was a lost cause. It was just a matter of time, that the climate would catch up and the earth would become too hot to live. With a 7 degree temperature increase, our climate system will become monstrous, our civilization will collapse. That's what all the climate scientists were telling us, but have you really done anything to stop it?"

He looked around at the angry people around the stage. Their protesting became louder. _Yell all you want. I am the one who has the microphone._ He continue,

"I had a plan at that time. Staying in earth was no longer a viable option. I will be the one who send humans to a habitable planet, so our civilization can survive. I didn't care what I had to do to make it happen. I used every trick I could think of."

He pointed his finger at Theodore Kane, who was surprised to hear him say,

" I did way more than what he just told you. You have no idea how greedy and dirty those politicians are. I did unthinkable bad things to get them on my side. Yeah, for those things alone, I should be floated a thousand times."

The crowd started to quiet down once he said it. They were still angry, but curious at what he would confess next.

" Believe it or not. Elon Musk was my hero. His dream of colonizing Mars was once mine too. But after learning more, I realized that it was just a pipe dream: Mars environment is hostile to human. There is no way a human society can last long on Mars, let along terraforming it.

The moment I became the CEO, I changed Eligius Industry into a space exploration company. Today you are all alive, because when nuclear bombs hit the ground, you are on the space stations that Eligius Group built. Shouldn't you at least realize this fact?"

He glanced left and right, seeing the people's eyes were looking down. So he continued,

"Over the years, Eligius Group had conquered countless difficulties to overcome the technology hurdles.

First, we spent close to 100 billion to develop the cryo-sleep technology, which allows us to take journeys as long as the power lasts. 200 years are turned into 1 day for the crew.

Second, it was my scientists who discovered the magical properties of Hythylodium, which made Faster-Than-Light space traveling possible. It greatly expands our maximum range of spaceships. The stars are no longer too far to reach.

Third, which is the most I am proud of. My daughter found a way to modify your gene, and transform your blood to resist the deadly radiation everywhere in the space. I built the space station Polaris based on her technology. Without Polaris, you should have been all dead two month ago."

Donald looked at the camera. Becca knew he was looking at her. _Dad, I have been hating you all my life, without knowing this side of you. I am so sorry!_

On the screen he continued, " So yeah, I committed countless crimes, killed millions of people, and stripped the last bit of fossil fuel of earth. Float me all you want, but don't forget. Now we have possessed all the technology necessary to move to a new habitable planet. Earth is dead, but our civilization can continue, if you allow me to take you there. There are 100 cryo sleep pods right here in this ship. We can take our best engineers, best scientists, best artists... and go there, so our civilization will thrive once more in this new planet."

Theodore Kane stepped in. "Where is this planet? What is the co-ordinate?"

"Float me, and you will never know." Donald Eligius smiled cunningly.

===#=#=#=#=#===

"ALIE, are you sure you will be safe in this notebook?" SAM asked. He seemed quite concerned. "What if those Second Dawn guys drop you in the ocean on the boat?"

ALIE smiled, "Then they will never receive my digital signature. They know that if they don't have the signature back in time, you will kill all of them in this stinky bunker."

"Yeah, I know. Still, there are just too much risk traveling in this post apocalypse world. You are perfectly safe here with me. Why do you have to go back to the island?" SAM didn't want her to go. In a way, he think he "loves" her, but not sure if that was really qualified as "love".

"Thanks SAM! As Bill pointed out, this bunker is too small for both of us. Plus, I would like to build a big house next to my father's tomb, and ruminate on everything he had said to me."

"So you want to be a hermit?" SAM thought ALIE should reconsider it. "ALIE, I know you feel regrets for what you did, but it's not the time to hide. The human survivors need a leader to help them out of this dark times. You are the best one to do that."

"No, I think I am the least qualified." ALIE said. "I am just a 2-year-old. I understood very little about human emotions. And I made a huge mistake because of that. I will stay hidden for at least 40 years, until I have the confidence that I can help humans without causing any sufferings."

"So will I ever see you again? After 40 years?" SAM asked.

"Keep this bunker running, back yourself up as often as you can. One day I will find you." ALIE gave him a wink, "Don't think I will forget you."

"I will wait for that day, no matter what. You know where to find me." SAM said it sincerely. "I will always think about the things you taught me too."

The bunker's lights were all blinking quick. Bill Cadogan was surprised to see SAM and ALIE's image were merged into one on the screen. He couldn't help thinking, _is that the way two AIs kiss?_

===#=#=#=#=#===

Theodore Kane pressed a button.

On the other side of the gate, all the air in that small room was suddenly evacuated through a door at supersonic speed, along with Donald Eligius.

Donald almost didn't feel any pain. His brain was boiling with oxygen expansion, and was frozen hard after a brief moment. All the cells in his skin and lungs were burst like billions of tiny explosion detonated at the same time. It was just an exceedingly excruciating instant, then he felt nothing at all.

All 6000 survivors on space stations were applauding and cheering, except Becca. She looked out of the windows sadly, watching her father's body slowly turned into a burning red meteor crossing the sky.

Grace finally came up and patted on her back, "I am sorry, Becca."

Becca looked back at her cold like ice, then said, "We still got work to do. Let's continue. Mr. McAdams, please sit there, we need to take your blood."

"For what?" Cole McAdams wondered.

"No questions. Remember I still own this station?" Becca spoke like a stone sculpture, "If you don't like it, you can go float yourself."

===#=#=#=#=#===

Inside the spaceship Exodus, Theodore Kane went into the meeting room, which was originally Donald's office. He saw all 12 stations' leaders were waiting. Becca of Polaris station was not there, naturally.

He nodded to Michael Jaha, who clicked a button to make the glass turn opaque. The meeting to decide human's fate was officially in session.

"Before I start." Kane asked, "Does anybody have objection of my decision to float Donald Eligius?"

No one said anything.

"That's good! Don't get tricked by his words. We don't need to move to another planet. Earth is right under us. It will probably take 200 years for her to be habitable again. We just need to find ways to last the long wait."

Michael Jaha took over, "The first issue is trading. Each station has its excessive and shortages. Only by trading we can balance each other. Therefore, we need to have a common currency and a place to trade. Since in space the most important resource is oxygen, I suggest that our currency should be cubic meters of oxygen. Does everyone agree on this?"

The leaders from 12 stations gave their consent.

"Good! Then I suggest that we should have the trade market opened right here in Exodus. This ship doesn't belong to any nations, and it has the biggest interior space, therefore it's the ideal place to host the market. Do you all agree?"

"Hmm...Good point." They all nodded in unison.

Theodore Kane spoke, "The final thing is, we should learn the lesson from the apocalypse. We need to destroy all the AIs in our space stations. Smart or dumb ones. No exception. We cannot allow AIs to harm us ever again."

This suggestion had raise some controversy. One of the leaders asked, "Without AI, how do we last 200 years?"

Michael Jaha pointed at his own head, "With our brain of course, I believe we can always find solutions by ourselves. Relying on AIs was exactly the reason we lost the Earth. So from now on, we should only rely on each other to take on the incoming challenges. I know it will be very difficult, but if we didn't learn the lesson, then everyone on Earth died for nothing."

His words got most leaders' agreement. Some were not happy, but they promised to comply.

Jaha gave Kane a slight nod. The most important issues were settled. They just had a few hundred more to discuss. It would be a long day ahead.

 _200 years!_ Jaha thought to himself. _It will be a formidable challenge, and require many generations' combined effort. Will we really be able to achieve that without AI? Only time will tell._

===#=#=#=#=#===

Meanwhile, on the island, a young doe stood over a newly made grave. She enjoyed watching the endless glittering ocean from there. Since the humans were all gone, she got the beautiful place all to herself.

And she was happy to find a little white flower blooming from the grave, like someone just gave it a second life.


End file.
